Episode: 35

Lauren Benoit

Transcript

Toban Dyck  00:00

Hi. This is The Extensionists conversations with great thinkers in agriculture. I’m Toban Dyck and I’m Jay Whetter. Hey, Jay. Hey Toban, you got the Hey Jay in there. I’m gonna do it this time. Yeah, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do it. So listener and viewer. I guess we’re on we’re on YouTube, by the way, Jay, Jay and I went to the Megadeth concert. It was Megadeth anthrax and Exodus concert in Winnipeg.

Jay Whetter  00:35

So, I went with my brother. Was going to be brothers, but one brother can make it. Sat on the floor. You are with your brothers in law,

Toban Dyck  00:43

two brothers in law and a friend 

Jay Whetter  00:44

and a friend up in the stands those bleeds, but two very differently, because you showed me pictures I shared you mine. Yeah, two really good perspectives. It was just an overall great event. I haven’t been to a heavy metal concert since I saw Metallica and Minot, North Dakota in 1989 so it’s, it’s been a while. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. My ears are still ringing from that concert. This one. I don’t know whether it’s the technology. I don’t want to just bullet go on and on about the sound, but it wasn’t super loud, but it was a full, beautiful sound. Yeah, the experience was, overall, just fantastic. 

Toban Dyck  01:20

It was. I do, I do. Love, I love, I love metal. So, so I mean metal as a genre, sure, but I just like how it’s so theatrical, like metal shows are theatrical rights anthrax, they put on a show, right? Like they’re, they’re characters, like there. And I just, I, I love that so much. Yeah. And, you know, you see that in so many of the metal bands, they kind of adopt this. And then when you, when you watch interviews with these, with these people, they’re actually very, they’re very like, you know, I was chatting with you earlier, or, you know, even the I was watching a YouTube video with the T Timu. I forget how he says his name, but he’s from Finland. He’s the guitarist for Megadeth. He said he’s an ice skater. So when they went, when they went through Saskatoon, he they, they produced a video just before, just before we Winnipeg concert. They produced a video where team who’s skating on the pond right by the besboro Hotel and and and shredding on this guitar. And the song is called Let there be shred. And it’s all him just skating around with his electric guitar because he skates right. He’s a skater. And anyway, so I was watching this YouTube video with him. Sorry, I’m hijacking this intro.

Jay Whetter  02:34

No, no. This is great.

Toban Dyck  02:38

I’m watching this YouTube video with him. As you got this guy, he’s young, he’s long, long, straight hair, and he’s talking about, is the craft of guitar, and he’s talking about, you know, the time he’s put in to learn it. And, you know, of course, getting the call from Megadeth to be their guitar player, of course, is just life changing, right? Like it’s, it’s the pinnacle of, kind of all the work you’ve put in into a craft, through a discipline. But he does talking about like, how he just loves, He loves jazz, and he loves all these other kind of you just don’t associate it right, like you, you know, as a kid growing up, kind of all the, you know, stigmas around metal musicians. You don’t think of them as, you know, this guy just loves his icons aren’t necessarily metal, like they’re, yeah, they’re just good, good guitar players. But yeah, when you see him on stage, he’s just like, head begging and just like rashing. Or, I love it.  

Jay Whetter  03:29

Well, it’s a bit like Picasso, who was taught by his uncle over like, meticulous months how to draw a perfect hand, right? And his uncle said, No, do it again. No. Like, for months and months and months. And so he became technically perfect, right? But you look at a Picasso painting now and you’re like, was there’s no perfection in that at all. That’s chaos, right? And it’s so it’s a bit like these, I love it. These heavy metal musicians are just like, that’s what they want to do. But they’re technically like, they could do all kinds of different things, guitar wise and musician wise. So you have, we were, I want to end with Zach Wilde, but before we get to him, and because he, you’ve got an actual an extension message.

Toban Dyck  04:09

It’s very similar to, yeah, Temu

Jay Whetter  04:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a Fin at the IFHA, and she was telling me, like, yeah, in Winnipeg, you called Temu Solani, Temu, and he said, she said his name is actually “Taymu”.

Toban Dyck  04:25

Yes, that rings a bell, because when he said, it introduced his name on YouTube.

Jay Whetter  04:31

So, this so back to the Megadeth concert. So I had been so long since I’d been to a concert, hadn’t been on the floor ever, and I said to this wonder, younger guy who’s and there’s just so fist, it was fist pumps and high fives, and it’s just, like, just a great crowd. Anyway, he said, I said, so like, you know when, when the band start, can we go to the front of this stage, or do we have to stay in our seats? And he said, I don’t know you, you let’s all go to the front. And then he said, spread the word. Brother, and then, so I thought that could be our new Extensionists taglie

Toban Dyck  05:06

Well, you did, because you sent me that, you sent me that message. So you did. You did spread the word.

Toban Dyck  05:10

Oh, I love it, all right. Zach Wilde

Toban Dyck  05:11

Well, so, Zach Okay, so Zach Wilde used to be the guitar player for Ozzy. He’s now he’s now he’s got his own band, Black Label, society, and a few other bands. So I was watching this YouTube video with Zach. You know, he’s an older guys. He’s just a rocker from the you know, he’s just a heavy metal guy. You look at him, he’s like, That guy definitely isn’t heavy metal band. So what’s interesting about this is, again, back to the stigmas about heavy metal musicians. As a kid, you grew up thinking like, well, you know, of course, there’s religious stuff, particularly evil, but they also like, they party a lot. They’re just like, you know, they’re just these, but no, they’re like, they’re actually like, disciplined, focused musicians. And I mean that, of course, it sounds ridiculous to say because, of course, they are, because they’re really good at what they do. But when you hear them talk about their craft, Zach said, when he was a kid, he’s like, he would get home from school and his friends would go and do other things, like, you know, honestly, bad things like, you know, hang out or whatever. He would go home and like, Picasso’s hand. He would learn his favorite songs on guitar and play them over and over and over and over again and then over again some more right, from like four to midnight every day, right? And you like over time, even though you’re not playing like you’re not going through a course book coursework. He said, Just learning that hand Yeah, or whatever it is, it’s the riffs that you like. You start you develop a full some picture of what this instrument is capable of, and you start to be able to kind of branch out from that and get creative with how you how you move your fingers across this fretboard. And then you find Yeah. And like, he’s a really, really good musician and,

Jay Whetter  07:05

And just happens to be making his living in the world of heavy metal, or heavy or arena rock or whatever.

Toban Dyck  07:12

Yeah, yeah. And just, practice, practice, practice, right? And just, I love it. I love those examples anyway. 

Jay Whetter  07:18

Well on that note, we’ll have a chat with Lauren Benoit.

Toban Dyck  07:23

Let’s get to it. 

Jay Whetter  07:24

Do you like what you’re hearing and want to support the extensionists? If you are an agriculture company or association looking for a powerful way to get your message in front of Canadian farmers, then partner with us. Our listeners are farmers from coast to coast.

Toban Dyck  07:46

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Jay Whetter  07:59

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Toban Dyck  08:07

So, if you’re ready to get your message out there and connect with farmers across Canada, let’s talk visit theextensionists.com for more information.  

Jay Whetter  08:16

Hi Lauren. Welcome to the podcast. Our guest today is Lauren Benoit and Lauren is a PhD student at the University of Saskatchewan and taking or studying biological nitrification inhibitors of wheat, but with Curtis posniak Anyway, we’re not going to dig into that too much, although it sounds very interesting. Maybe we’ll have to at some point, but, but Lauren, welcome. It’s good to have you. Thank you. So, so we are going to talk about quite ambitious Nuffield Scholarship project that you did on public, private partnerships and extension and where the extension is. So we’ll get to extension eventually, but, but there’s two things we need to talk about. First one is, so I looked up you’re from, you’re you’re from this tiny, little town in Ontario called Kirkton. And this is nuts, but Timothy eaton’s first store was in Kirkland. Yes, that is incredible.

Lauren Benoit  09:26

Yeah. So, the the Kirkton store, which is one of the more notable buildings in Kirkton, if you go into the back of it, there’s like, little antiques and a few photos from that time. But yeah, after that family immigrated. I’m sure. I think they had some connections to St Mary’s as well, but the first one of their first bricks and mortar buildings was in kirkston, Ontario,

Jay Whetter  09:48

So, maybe a lot of people don’t know. People outside Canada don’t know who Timothy Eaton is.

Toban Dyck  09:53

So Jay saying this because he was reading about Timothy Eaton when we were kind of researching this interview and and I just yelled at him. I’m like, who’s Timothy Eaton?

Jay Whetter  10:01

Yeah, so Toban doesn’t even who Timothy Eaton is. 

Toban Dyck  10:02

That was out of context. Of course, I know. Of course I know Jay,

Jay Whetter  10:10

But their stores have been gone for a long time. Their stores have been gone for 20 years. So because the Jets arenas is in the old Eatons building that was in downtown Winnipeg, and that thing was built in probably 20 years ago. Yeah, at least 20 years ago. Yeah, so, so big retailer in Canada, famous, he’d be like, like a Macy’s or fields, or JC Penney of Canada and, and a lot of houses. You might not know this, Lauren, but a lot of houses on farms on the prairies were Eatons houses. So you would buy a kit, and it would show up by rail or by truck, all these bits and pieces and bobs.

Toban Dyck  10:55

It’s a very kind of, once you see the style, you see them all over the place, yeah. He’s very kind of akin the little a frame, kind of, yeah, very what’s the style of house? There’s a there’s a name for it. I forget it. 

Jay Whetter  11:08

I’m not an architect, but they’re like, two story, quite substantial farmhouses, yeah.

Lauren Benoit  11:14

Anyway, yeah, I didn’t know that. And I mean, now that I’m in the prairies, I will, yeah, look up what they look like, and then I’ll drive around.

Jay Whetter  11:21

Well, Les Henry, who has passed away, but as a as a legend at you, u of s, he did a whole book about the Eaton houses, just as a total side project. He’s a soil scientist, or he was famous, maybe the more most famous soil scientist on the prairie. So, yeah, you could just ask anybody about les Henry’s Eaton’s book, and you can. They’ll tell you all about it. 

Jay Whetter  11:47

We could talk, or did you want to talk about curling? Or is that me?

Toban Dyck  11:50

You, you, you do. I mean, I have, I have curled before. My wife’s really she loves curling. The Briars happening right now, and that’s exciting. I would, I would probably hijack this portion of the podcast to talk about hiking. Oh, yeah, do that?

Jay Whetter  12:08

Hiking is almost more exciting than curling. 

Toban Dyck  12:10

Hiking is almost more exciting than curling, but you but you curl. So he’s excited, because in our in our notes, it says Lauren that you’re looking for a team, and Jay has an opening for you.

Jay Whetter  12:22

Yeah, well, we have six players on our team because we can never all show up at the right time, and so we’d be welcome a seven when, when you decide to move to Winnipeg, we’ll put you on our roster.

Lauren Benoit  12:33

Okay, I will. I will let you know. And it’s funny, you mentioned that because I, when I curled in Ingersoll, we used to have two teams of four, and then it kind of just became one, one team of, you know, eight semi reliable people. That’s right, yeah, semi just to get people there on time, because, or every week.

Jay Whetter  12:51

Yeah, even if we show up, we’re semi reliable, yeah, yeah, throwing rocks in the house.

Lauren Benoit  12:57

That’s funny.

Lauren Benoit  13:00

Go ahead. Oh, I was just gonna say, I didn’t realize it. I just realized it a few days ago that the Brier is actually coming to Saskatoon next year. So, that was the highlight of my day yesterday. That’s awesome to go watch the Brier again.

Toban Dyck  13:14

Pre-buy tickets already, or, yeah, something like that. Yeah. That’s awesome

Jay Whetter  13:18

Where do your favourite places to hike?

Lauren Benoit  13:22

Oh, there’s so many good places to hike. A friend and I actually did the W trek in Patagonia, right? It was right after the Nuffield, kind of the big Nuffield conference. So 2024, a friend and I did the W trek in Patagonia, which is incred.

Jay Whetter  13:39

Is that up and over the mountains from Chile to Argentina? Or where does this trek go?

Lauren Benoit  13:44

It’s, now, I’m blanking on what side it’s on. It’s on the Chilean side. And you kind of do like it’s a W shape, so it’s, there’s a few out and backs along, kind of a trail, yeah, a lot of elevation, yeah, and it’s all through the mountains along with it. What were we four days? You can kind of pick and choose a little bit. So if you want, you can extend it and make it a lot longer, because it’s a part of a larger network. I think we did four days, if I remember correctly. We got incredible weather for the first three, and then on the last day, it was like sideways, right? It was, it was the most. It’s the day we actually talked about the most because it was so miserable. But because it was the last day, it wasn’t that bad. All of our stuff got soaked. That’s probably the most memorable hike that I’ve been on. But even I was actually happy to move out West, because I’ll be closer to the mountains, not too terribly close, but closer than Ontario, so I can hopefully get to that a few times.

Toban Dyck  14:55

So, have you done Have you done any multi day hikes in Canada?

Lauren Benoit  14:58

 No, I haven’t. I would love to find some Yeah, yeah.

Toban Dyck  15:05

Like, yeah, West Coast, for sure, there would be, there would be, like, Yeah, 

Lauren Benoit  15:09

I had friends do the, what is it the Victoria Island trail. What is that?

Toban Dyck  15:16

I think that’s the West Coast. Yeah. I’m drawing a blank on all the names right now. I mean, I know the West Coast Trail, but that’s a super hard one. There’s another, there’s a couple other popular ones that aren’t so challenging. But yeah, I would. I’ve never done it. I’ve never done a multi day hike. I would love to do a multi day hike and going to Patagonia would be it’d be amazing. In fact, wife and I are trying to think of spring break plans. So maybe that’d

Toban Dyck  15:41

So maybe that’s be a trail in Patagonia

Toban Dyck  15:43

But I like the idea, like the driving rain on the last day. I mean, you know, like, we watch a lot of YouTube videos of, like, ultra runners going through the mountains and hikers and all that kind of stuff and and like, as crappy as that is actually kind of fills me with like, I would love that, because when you as a hiker, you kind of want to prepare for all the all the you want to have the gear for all of the possibilities, the eventualities, yeah, and to kind of it. Could imagine the satisfaction. I don’t know how prepared you were, but I could imagine, imagine the satisfaction of encountering those conditions and being ready for them right and having the right gear. So were you prepared?

Lauren Benoit  16:21

Yes, we were, well, like, we had rain gear. It was kind of the type of rain that I’m not sure you could have been more prepared for, like, there is a so we were still wet by the end. We could have been more prepared, certainly, but we weren’t. We weren’t terribly ill prepared by any means. We both had raincoats. It was just like, it was insane. And it does not that it’s a good thing, but you know, when you carried your rain gear around for three days, there is a little bit of satisfaction and actually getting to use it. Yeah, so which is one of the but, yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was a friend and I hiking together, and she had actually hurt her ankle, and I think we had three or four hours of hiking on the last day, and I don’t think we said a word to each other the whole entire time. Like, like we left, and it was the nice thing about that trek too. We had a tent that we brought, but there was shelter at each stop. So, like, you could go into a building, you could get hot food. You didn’t have to be 100% reliant on yourself, which was, yeah, that’s great. Really, really nice. But I think we left the first. We left where we had stayed the night before, and walked in like, total silence and pouring rain for like four hours until we got to the end. 

Toban Dyck  17:37

Oh, I love that. I can just imagine you’re tired, and then these conditions,

Jay Whetter  17:43

Was it like the gravel side of a mountain where, if you lost your footing, you would tumble for 1000s of feet?

Lauren Benoit  17:50

Yeah? Yeah, yeah. There was a little bit of that, a little bit of kind of like through through wooded areas, a few that was just like some of it was really exposed. I’m sure it would have been gorgeous. On a nice day, you just kind of put you head down

Jay Whetter  18:07

And you’re walking in the middle of a cloud and you can barely see your feet. Is that what it was like?

Lauren Benoit  18:11

Oh, yeah, exactly like it was. So, yeah, it’s, I love hiking.

Toban Dyck  18:19

Did you? Did you record it? Did you? Did you, like, do take video and photos? 

Lauren Benoit  18:24

And so, that’s the other thing. That’s what, we had a lot of pictures from the first three days, yeah, I think we have one picture from that day. Oh, yeah, like, and it was, like, it like the trail had turned into a bit of a waterfall, yeah? And I think I took a picture of that. But other than that, we have, like, no real evidence that it happened, except for our own memories.

Toban Dyck  18:45

That’s great. I just love like, in the notes here, it says your favorite food, and it says this sandwich you eat on a hike when you’ve reached the pinnacle. And I’m like, I don’t know. I feel like that’s just like, there’s like, there’s like, some real depth behind that, like, as opposed to just saying, hey, like a guy like lasagna, or like, is there is something. So it’s tied to just fatigue, kind of end of the line. You know, desperation. Need enjoyment.

Jay Whetter  19:13

It must taste so good.

Toban Dyck  19:15

Yeah, it’s just all these things that kind of build, that build something that’s kind of quite special. I love that. That’s a great answer.

Lauren Benoit  19:23

But it’s actually, it’s funny you mentioned that too, because the other thing about this, this really tough last day in Patagonia, my friend and I got to, like, the final location, and we’re just like, we are soaked through a few layers of clothes, and sit down at a bench, and there was another pair of hikers, and they had hot chocolate. And I just, like, looked at them, and I was like, where, like, where did you get that hot chocolate? And I don’t think I’ve moved so quickly to, like, get a warm drink. So as much as I think my favorite food might be, you know, the sandwich, the other thing too, especially, and I don’t know what you. Guys think about, well, hiking, I if I will be thinking about that sandwich, probably from when I start, yeah, the hike, yeah, the anticipation is always like, helps so much.

Toban Dyck  20:17

That’s great. That’s how it needn’t have been anything special. Or you could even be like, the, you know, one of those, like dehydrated food packs, and it would still, would be amazing, right? Because it’s so much better.

Lauren Benoit  20:28

Yes, yeah, that’s funny.

Jay Whetter  20:28

Well, we’ve brought you here to talk about, we’re going to talk about that your Nuffield Scholarship work, and then some of the takeaways from that, which fits in with our with our extension, but our whole purpose for being here, but this public, private partnership, that’s a lot of peas. Did that really pop in your ears over there? Abby, no, we’re good. So I think it’s so critical to research in Canada, we’ve got a lot of public sector investment, maybe less so than there used to be, but we want to make sure that it fits a purpose for farmers and for the private companies that are often going to be using this work. What’s the current landscape? Do you think with public private partnerships in Canada on the agriculture side?

Lauren Benoit  21:26

Yeah, it’s, um, it’s a good it was a broad topic. So I will start there. And I think there’s a lot of different like, I think there within Canada, just how diverse the country is, there’s going to be little instances where public private is working together really, really well, and then there’s going to be other instances where they’re kind of just separate. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, like, I think, you know, sometimes it makes sense for private industry to just run with something, and then other times it makes a lot more sense for the public space to be much more involved, I think, and this is a little bit of my gut feel right now. I think we’re going through a bit of a transition time, especially on the research front, with the recent announcements from AAFC about budgets in that space. I think, you know, some of the comforts that we’ve gotten used to, or some of the way we the ways we used to do things is going to change a little bit, and I think we need to embrace that potential for change, or just at least acknowledge it. I don’t think we can kind of ignore and pretend nothing’s ever going to change and just keep keep going. But I do think we’re at a little bit of a transition point right now.

Jay Whetter  22:38

If you are going to then guide or offer your your insights to guide Canada through this transition, or were there models that you learned in your in your study that would work here?

Lauren Benoit  22:54

So, I think one of the the Australian model, is one that I think we have, there’s a lot of pieces of it that I think we could kind of take and learn from one of the things kind of across the board, though. I mean, every country is a little bit different, and we operate with, you know, different markets, different trading partners, different production systems, different climates. So I don’t think we can kind of just perfectly pick something up somewhere else and then take it and drop it in Canada. But I think across the board when it came to, you know, collaborations, having having everyone’s input at the beginning, doing a lot of the legwork up front, and kind of developing the networks, and getting a really good groundwork is something that pays dividends in the long run, as much as it we sometimes maybe want to hurry through those steps, but that network development and those relationship building activities, which can take a little bit of time, you’re not going to see the dividend on them right away, but I think in the long run, you know, as we we do that, making sure everyone’s in the room to have an opinion and to kind of understand and bring everyone along, as we do kind of transition or create things is one of the most important.

Jay Whetter  24:02

Who is everyone? Like, who would you put on that list?

Lauren Benoit  24:06

Yeah, so I just as a this is a bit of a general start, but I think, you know, in general, obviously, you know the government, you’re, in some ways, elected officials, or just, you know, people that work in the public sector. You have producer groups as well, and representatives from just a very boots on the ground perspective of how things would actually be implemented or perceived. And then you have various industry representatives as well, from from agribusiness. And I also think, you know, with a lot of collaborations or just initiatives, if you advertise might not be the right word, but if you you know, communicate that there’s an opportunity to be involved in something like that, people can then choose if they want to be involved or not, rather than just kind of doing it. Never you know, sharing about. About it, but as as a general rule of thumb, you know, getting producers in the room, I think, is, is a big first step, obviously the public space, and then someone to represent. And when I say someone, not necessarily one person, but various people, to kind of represent some of the other players in that network.

Jay Whetter  25:22

And so, by government, do you mean public sector researchers? So it could be university, or, say, Agriculture Canada, or do you also mean, like, the Minister of Agriculture? Like, how, what? What is the government component?

Lauren Benoit  25:36

Yeah, for the government, thinking through an Ontario lens, I do know I just moved west. But a lot of my experience, obviously comes from Ontario. I was thinking of people like the OMAFRA extension specialist, the OMAFRA research and innovation, even their policy people, just having them be involved in, kind of aware of what is happening. And really that intention, too, is to have them be connected to the industry, like, the more connection points you can, you can make, I think the more, the higher the likelihood that something beneficial is going to come, come out of it. And then.

Jay Whetter  26:13

So, just for people who don’t know Ontario, that’s the government agency. So Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and what is it rural? It’s got a name change, but that

Lauren Benoit  26:23

changed it, yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s omafa now, and I just wrote this down the other day. I think it’s Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness, okay, yeah, they didn’t change.

Toban Dyck  26:35

Yeah, I know I was using the old one the other day, and, yeah, got corrected.

Jay Whetter  26:39

So we gather, we gather the government, this provincial government agency, you gather farmers, you gather in industry representatives, maybe you also invite University of Guelph, say, just to use the Ontario model, and this is to rethink the future of agriculture and probably, and the investment in research, I think maybe we’ll stick with the like, guiding research, right? Is that, is that the point of the private, public partnerships,

Speaker 2  27:10

As you investigated it, yeah, yeah. Is it research, yeah. Or what is

Lauren Benoit  27:14

This is probably a good, a little bit of a segue, yeah. So when I, when I sat, when I designed the project, or when I kind of came up with the idea, it started as that, you know how, as far as guiding research priorities and dividing up the research work, who does what and how do we talk to each other, was kind of the initial who does what and who pays for what? Was kind of the initial thought. And then once I dug into it, that’s kind of when the whole systems approach started to become really, really clear. And there’s a lot of, I’ll call them, supporting functions around research that impact how research gets adopted that we might not think of as research necessarily. So obviously we have extension networks, and then you have funding, like various funding models, and how, how academics are funded will impact the type of research that they’re doing. And then how academics are incentivized to network with the industry, the industry being producers or or businesses, which, I guess producers are businesses too. But you know how, how academics or researchers are incentivized will impact how well they network and who they network with. And then outside of that, you have, you have the funding models. So where is the money coming from? How is it getting distributed? And you have a regulatory system as well. So you know, if we do all of this good research, but can’t ever bring, you know, products or things to market, or if there’s regulatory hurdles as well, the research becomes a little bit not necessarily relevant, but the value of it gets kind of diminished when you have a regulatory system That isn’t conducive to bringing innovation to market. So that was where then that was kind of how it how it started. It started with just within the research space, and then it ballooned out, and I kind of had to bring it back a little bit,

Jay Whetter  29:13

And that’s when the job becomes challenging. But also that systems approach, or that big picture is really important. And I think in any meeting maybe, and again, this is our part of it. This is what we can do. But we might achieve this, but if we don’t have the regulatory, I mean, all of our work is is for not so I want to before we go down that that path, what I really found interesting that I want to dig into a little bit, is your comment about researchers and their incentive to network because we were in extension worlds, we just assume that everyone wants. Wants to talk about what they’re doing, but some a some people aren’t good at that and and make and maybe it’s not even in their job description, it’s not even on their radar, and they’re thinking, what, like, how? So what is, what is the scenario with, with the incentive to network with, with some of our researchers? Yeah, no,

Lauren Benoit  30:21

I think, I think you’ve hit on something. This was kind of a big thing that I learned a lot about, too, but using, using the academic model, so kind of the university model, you know, if you had researchers, where using a young researcher, for example, not to name anyone specifically, but, you know, you have a young researcher, they’re keen, they’re eager, they want to impact the industry in a positive way. They’re smart, and they’re trying to make tenure if their university, if they’re kind of the university promotion system, is evaluating them for tenure, and the only thing they’re looking at is things like publications or courses taught any sort of extension work that they’re doing they might not end up getting credit for. You know, when it comes to their own career promotion, in their own career potential, which I think often puts them in really tough situations where maybe they would love to spend some time talking to farmers and putting together presentations for grower groups and everything. But if that work isn’t going to be reflected, you know, when they go and sit in front of the tenure and promotion board, if that work isn’t going to give them, if it’s not going to count or be credited towards them in a way that they can put their case together to get tenure, then it that work could almost be, I don’t, I don’t want to say negative necessarily, because I think it is probably a benefit to the industry to have them as involved, but they might end up having to pay a little bit of a personal penalty for doing that work that is so good to the industry.

Toban Dyck  31:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think that. I think that’s really interesting, like at the university level. So, you know, I’ve often thought about this with extension, right? Like, how is it taught in universities for people, you know, kind of going through education, MSCs, or whatever, I mean, you could speak to this. You’ve, you’ve been through it, and you’re in it now. Is there a role for kind of bringing extension more into that university space to like, to incentivize because I agree, so someone really career tracked, and they’re not like they might want to do it, but it doesn’t fit in. It’s not going to be recognized later. They’re going to put their energy towards something that will be recognized and and then then extension, gonna gets left behind. And then that’s a, that’s a routine that you’re used to, is to not do extension, or extension is lesser than, than the other things. And then you kind of, you have to kind of rethink that. When you enter the world, enter the, you know, the working world, and you have to do extension, then you kind of gotta, yeah, it’s interesting. I could see it being a problem, yeah.

Lauren Benoit  33:02

And actually, I think a few other things kind of on this space too, as well, especially with with academics and with researchers. And the skill set that makes a really good researcher isn’t always the same skill set that makes a really good extension agent, for sure, which I think is a little bit of, you know you’re just asking one person to be a lot of different things, which is, which is a big burden. I do find, and I would actually love to hear what you guys think of this extension in general. I find it hard to it’s sometimes hard to quantify what your impact is. And using kind of an example from when I worked at Bayer as an agronomist, being a customer facing agronomist. Obviously, they want us out talking talking to farmers who have bought our products. And you can either just go talk to farmers, or you could go talk to farmers and then write down every single thing you did like in the public space, especially where they’re looking for you know, we’ve spent so much money on extension, what was the return on that investment? But that invest, that return on that investment is a little less tangible than it is if it’s a research paper, or if it’s a if it’s a research paper, or if it’s, you know, $1 value or a production increase, necessarily so I find with extension in general, it’s just a little bit harder to prove the value in a very concrete way that you can easily turn around and say, this was the money that was invested. This is what sort of things we got for it. And the other thing actually, to kind of pull another example from, from the report when I was in the Netherlands as well. In the Netherlands, they’ve really scaled back on public extension agents. So they’ve, my understanding was they’ve eliminated, you know, public extension agents. And they were feeling from the producer side, there had been a market developed, so there was independent agronomists providing that sort of, you know, service. Knowledge, or knowledge to growers where they were feeling a gap was the feedback loop back to government. So they didn’t have, they didn’t have anyone with a with a I don’t know what the name of their government department is anymore, but with the Netherlands ag division, right? You know, job title and a grower focused job responsibility as well. So they they were feeling the feedback back to government was being impacted, which is where the regulatory and the policy aspect comes in as well, because it all works together.

Jay Whetter  35:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as you’re as you’re answering that question, Lauren, I was just thinking about measurables. Comes up so often, and even my work and extension, like, how do you measure the value of extension?

Toban Dyck  35:52

Or the impact, yeah, or the impact, same, same.

Jay Whetter  35:55

So, and I’m thinking, so I know Bayer, this isn’t, this isn’t, this is kind of extension work, but it’s also sales work. And I mean bears, a business obviously wants to increase market share, and we, which would be a key measurable revenue, but, but so you want, but there’s the short term thinking is, let’s just we want farmers to use our products. But I think the long term thinking is, we want farmers to use our products and actually have a have a good feeling about using our project products, and that kind of that. So there’s that that’s a relationship building, not just sales and anyway. So what I mean, what were, what were bears, measurables, what were the key, key objectives for you? And is there something? Is there a parallel then, in the role of extension,

Lauren Benoit  36:44

That’s a good question. And this was something that I, I’ve thought about it a little bit more. And to be completely honest, the and you’ve, you’ve already, you know, tagged on it, the key deliverable for Bayer was a sales dollar,

Jay Whetter  36:59

No surprise. And not, I mean, that’s makes total sense.

Lauren Benoit  37:02

Yeah, it’s, it’s a business, and at the end of the day, you know, as an agronomist, getting out, talking to growers, building those relationships, they become more comfortable with you, they become more comfortable with various products, and they know you can be kind of relied on. So then, you know, the business grows. Hopefully both businesses grow, and the grower ends up more profitable, and Bayer is a big part of that. So the metric to determine whether agronomists, or really any of our customer facing team was was doing their job, was, you know, our sales numbers going up, which is more or less a pretty easy black and white, yeah, yeah, you know, thing thing to look at. And I think that’s where the public space, it just becomes that much more difficult to measure. And if you were, you know, outside of a product necessarily, if you were an independent agronomist, and your whole business was kind of that knowledge, knowledge network, or knowledge transaction, where you’re really selling kind of information, and you’re selling, you’re selling information, you’re selling trying to think of the right word for it, not intelligence, but really, I guess it’s information practices or behaviors or whatever, yeah, yeah, or Yeah. It’s telling them ways that they can help make better decisions on their farm. Yeah. Then, even then, you still have your own, you know what? If I’ve, if I have 10 clients, and all of them have, you know, stuck with me year over year and and recommended me to their neighbors. Then I know on the extension front, I’m likely doing a good job. Whatever I’m doing has been working, and obviously they’re engaging with it, but I think in the public space, because there’s not necessarily a transaction, it’s just that much more difficult to figure out what it’s I think it’s harder. It’s two it’s harder on two fronts. It’s harder to figure out what’s working. You know, if on our side, or as an independent agronomist, if you run an event and no one comes to it, then you made me miss the mark, or, like, if you put out ads and no one’s answered, whereas I think in the public space, it’s just that much harder to find, you know, a key performance indicator that that is going to resonate.

Toban Dyck  39:45

And to jump in, because you got one, you got one, loaded, ready, I sort of so we’ve thought about this a lot. I’ve been speaking for Jay here, and it’s come up to like these, these measurables in the extension space, and how difficult it is to actually track these things, KPIs or whatever. Yeah. And, but I asked this is a question for myself, too, looking at a mirror, is like, Is it, is it, is it that hard, or are we just a little bit lazy with, with, kind of, like, with, with, actually, kind of developing the models for measuring these things, because I think, like, there’s got to be a way. And, I mean, I think just, you know, yeah, maybe some of the key, some of the things that we’re used to, how we measure kind of success or efficacy, we can’t, doesn’t translate to the things that we do in extension or but, but there’s got to be ways we can still do it like that. We we track so much right now, technology’s allowed us to. There’s got to be ways we can, we can, kind of, we can track the the effectiveness. And I think, I don’t know, I feel like we should maybe spend more time thinking about that and actually develop these.

Jay Whetter  40:50

Do you have a thought? 

Toban Dyck  40:51

I don’t. I mean, that’s my thought. It’s just like, No.

Jay Whetter  40:55

But do you have a solution to your thought? Have you have you brainstormed anything?

Toban Dyck  40:59

No, nothing, nothing concrete, mostly just that. Yeah, so you trying to tell me that my comment is useless,

Jay Whetter  41:11

I think, just underline the importance. Yeah, that question, Lauren did, did you did anything jump in your brain as Toban was talking.

Lauren Benoit  41:19

Yeah, as you were talking kind of the thing that I was thinking about a little bit was, um, and this isn’t a perfect example, necessarily, but it is. It’s from so in the Australian funding model, the they have the GRDC, which is the Greens Research and Development Corporation. The GRDC is very well funded. Um, there they actually have probably too large of a surplus. They run a $200 million budget every year to go towards, you know, grains, research and development. But when, because they have, I’ll say, you know, a surplus of money, they can spend more time and effort into figuring out, you know, what’s working and what’s not working, maybe not in the extension space. But one of the things I noticed there that they had was they actually had better models for tracking the impact of climate change on their growers operations. I don’t have the data in front of me right now, but they had actually correlated, you know, you know, change in temperature degrees to a loss of productivity for their growers. And having that as a data set, when they also had people go out and, you know, talk about things like no till, or talk about things that really have an environmental benefit or maybe a less tangible benefit, they were able to tie a practice like like no till to you, if you, if you implement no till, or increase carbon stores in your soil, you can, you know, contribute to help you reduce climate change. You want to do this as a grower, because it is impacting your productivity. And they would have numbers to kind of back that up. But when you looked at the whole scheme of research, if you don’t have enough funding to fund all of it, some of that tracking is going to be the first things that’s going to, you know, come off of your list of priorities, right? And I think when we look at extension work, because we’re in a fiscal environment where money is a little bit tight, it’s not that we it’s not that we can’t do those things, or we can’t develop those tools. I just think that if, if you only have $1 to spend, which is, obviously, we’ll have what, more than $1 but if you only have $1 to spend, and your option is, do the extension work or quantify how impactful the extension work was. You’re going to just do the extension work, yeah,

Jay Whetter  43:46

But are you saying that’s the right move or that, or should we save 10 cents for measuring? 

Lauren Benoit  43:52

Yeah, which I think is probably worth it, worth a bigger discussion. And yeah, maybe there’s a split there. I also think, you know, we run the risk a little bit when the fiscal environment gets a little bit more restricted, that if you spread the dollar too thin, you’re going to end up with three or four half done initiatives, which I think is kind of another conundrum or complexity, where do you go all in on a few things? Or do you spread things out a little bit more.

Jay Whetter  44:30

Do 10 Things half ass or two things really? Well? Yeah, you spent a lot of time in Australia, or at least the Australian model was kind of resonated with you, this GRDC, 200 million a year. What are they doing extension? Like, do they have a mandate for extension? Yeah, they also do crop breeding. I think, I mean, they’re into a lot of things, but just on the on the extension side. What does GRDC do? How are they funded, and what, how big is extension as part of their model? What can we learn?

Lauren Benoit  45:06

Yeah, good questions. As a just as a side note, when you said they’re they’re involved in a lot of things. When I was in Australia, one of the taglines I’ve kind of come up with is that, like all roads lead back to the GRDC, okay, like they are everywhere, which I think when you think of systems, actually lends a lot of efficiency to it, because you have one organization that can see and influence a lot of different aspects of your whole innovation system. But to back up a little bit, the GRDC is Research and Development Corporation. So in Australia, I think there’s 13 of them for various industries. The GRDC is the grains one. And the way they’re funded is there’s a check off that comes from the grower. So similar to the way the grain farmers of Ontario takes a check off at the elevator, the GRDC takes a check off from growers. It’s a 0.9% of their but that would be gross revenue goes straight to the GRDC, and then the government matches it to half. So, so if a grower has put in $1 the GRDC would match it to 50 cents, and then that’s where they’re so their budget is roughly 60% farmer funded research. Their board is made up of grower members, and then their mandate is to really oversee and invest in research and development initiatives on behalf of grain farmers in in Australia. And they do, as you said, they they’re involved in a lot of different things. Their crop breeding is now actually funded by a thing called an endpoint royalty. So they don’t fund they have partial ownership in various seed businesses, but they’re not actually funding the work, the physical breeding work anymore. But they do fund a lot of like the upstream things. So drought tolerance, disease tolerance, pre breeding efforts the GRDC is involved in, and then really what they do and what, the way, it was kind of explained to me that the best example that is actually weed resistance, because this was one. It is what I did my Masters on. So I found it just a little bit easier to grasp some of the finer details. But the GRDC would essentially put together a proposal for a weed resistance initiative. They put together a proposal. They have people at the GRDC that understand what needs to happen, and they kind of help facilitate, all right, with the status of weed resistance in Australia. What do we need? Do we need more research? Do we need more tracking of the distribution of weeds? Do we need extension work here? Do we need? What else do we need? And then they kind of funnel the dollars to where it actually needs to be invested, and they kind of just oversee everything. They don’t do the research themselves. They would partner with universities or partner with third party research or even state level research, but they kind of just oversee it all and help tie the pieces together and and outline, outline, or just point out where, where the gap is in the system between generating the research and actually having it be, you know, relevant to a growers business.

Jay Whetter  48:26

Well, that’s that’s interesting. So would they? Would they modify their budgets annually and like, Okay, we’ve got all this research. The past 10 years, we’ve been spending 60% of our budget on research, but we’re not talking about this research. So for the next three years, we’re going to reduce our research budget and invest in extension or something like, do they do they move these levers on an annual basis?

Lauren Benoit  48:49

So, the way I understood it, and using the weed resistance example, I think their number, and we can, we can fact check this number. But when I was there, I was there actually about this time last year in Perth, they just announced the $92 million fund for weed resistance research. That fund opens, and then people can apply. So within that fund, I don’t think there’s, from what I understood, there’s not a certain of that 92 million over I think four or five years, it’s not that this, this amount of dollars is going to go directly to research, and this amount is going to go to extension. It’s, we have this bot under this topic. It was like, it’s sorted by topics more so than functions, yeah,

Jay Whetter  49:33

92 million. That seems like a lot for weeds research, amazing.

Toban Dyck  49:39

So, is that? Is that a model Lord, like, do you see, can you can you see some of that kind of working in Canada? Or, like, what’s Yeah, what can we take away?

Lauren Benoit  49:48

Yeah. I think one of the things, I think it really helps with was getting people out of silos a little bit more. So then you’re to use an example, if you’re an academic. Dyck, the Australian research what a Hari Australian herbicide resistance Institute is actually in at UWA University of Western Australia. You know, if you’re a researcher in that space, the GRDC has this fund, and you can apply. You could put an extension project in, you could put a research project in, and like as a researcher, you can, you have access to kind of different functions, rather than just having to be, like just straight research. So I do think it helps get them out of silos a little bit more. That’s kind of just my, my perception of it. One of the other things though, that was a really big learning from Australia and from talking to academics there was specifically talking to these herbicide resistance researchers at the UWA. They said the GRDC is the biggest funder in Australia for for, you know, production focused research. So they know that that’s their biggest funder. They know that’s their the most likelihood that they’re going to get funding for their program. So they were highly incentivized to even before they put in a proposal, they would be talking to farmers and understanding what farmers wanted. Because if they could say that they’d already done that in the proposal, they were that much more likely of getting funding for their projects. And it just from the academic side, the producer views, or the producer perspective, was kind of elevated, because they were also, you know, funding a lot of it, which, again, when if we want to talk about how to incentivize academics pay for their research, is, yeah, right, a pretty good way.

Jay Whetter  51:49

So ,going back to a point you made earlier about researchers, mean that the the skill set that makes a good researcher is not necessarily the skill set that makes them a good communicator, like, sometimes they’re kind of diverging in a way. So would GRDC take on the responsibility then of sort of funding the research and then taking the results and extending it, rather because, because now I often hear and Toban, I’ve been part of these conversations about, you know, training scientists to be better communicators. I think, well, maybe that’s just the wrong approach. Let’s let the scientists be scientists, and then we’ll take care of the communication. And so does GRDC take that approach?

Lauren Benoit  52:33

Yes, I can’t remember the name of they had a specific role for a person that would be doing that, and I can’t remember the name of the project manager, or something along those lines, but they essentially had a person who, and that would be what they would help with, to just kind of facilitate that

Jay Whetter  52:56

The word, the phrase we use, and as knowledge and technology transfer, this KTT thing has become, I think it’s now part of my job description. But anyway, yeah, with this communication of of research, anything you want to emphasize on the extension, because we’ve gone down a few rabbit holes and like, can we? Can we bring it back to a communications, effective communications, conversation like we’re what? How do we communicate effectively, research?

Lauren Benoit  53:31

Yeah, I think one of the things that stood out, and it actually stands out with, you know, some in Ontario, with some things, but this is maybe less about this is more about collaborations and communicating in general. And I’m so guilty of doing this, but we often talk about, I mean, it’s right in the pro it in the title of my project. You know, we talked about the public space collaborating with the private space, and we talked about the University of Guelph collaborating with OMAFA. But really, at the end of the day, more often than not, it comes down to, like an individual person, like, it’s one researcher called one farmer to start, and then they had a conversation, and then it ballooned. Or, like, one I gave a presentation, and then Jay called me like, that’s right, it starts at an individual basis, and sometimes, you know, when press releases come out, it says the University of Guelph is collaborating, or so and so is collaborating. But I feel like we sometimes, and I don’t know if this is maybe a human psychology thing, we we undervalue our own ability to create some of these collaborations, and the big ones usually start from small ones, and that was kind of a consistent thing across the board, was just how, how often large collaborations really started with one or two people working together?

Jay Whetter  55:01

Well, I think you could, I’ve just made me think of Timothy Eaton, which is kind of nuts, but I mean, this tiny little, yeah, well, this tiny little story, I mean, because there was something in Timothy Eaton, like the person, his approach to business, and it just ballooned into something big. I’m just kind of emphasizing your point that is actually people are at the root of all of this. And sometimes it’s even one person with an idea, or two people connecting, and then you just kind of expand. So this is how I would interpret that your point, Lauren, is that, you know, if we see some a need, if we see an opportunity, talk to somebody about it, and then broaden the circle, and it may, if it’s a good idea, it’ll grow,

Lauren Benoit  55:52

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that’s that was kind of one of the key learnings. And I think it’s we often, I feel like we sometimes wait until you need to collaborate before you call someone. And sometimes, you know, and I’ve This is something I’ve worked on. I’m not perfect at it, by any means. But instead of waiting until you need a collaborative partner, you know, look for an opportunity where a collaborative partner would make something better, where not to say it wasn’t bad or anything, to do it on your own. The examples I’m thinking of are, again, they’re very small things. But you know, if I was giving a presentation at work, and I never actually got to this specific example that I’m going to use, I never actually got to, you know, fully realize it. So it’s a bit of a moot point. But, you know, we have a, if I’ve been asked to give a presentation to growers, they see me all the time, you know, maybe, and it’s perfectly fine for them to see me all the time. I can give a presentation on our hybrid lineup. It’s not, it’s not difficult. It’s not kind of outside of the realm of my capabilities, you know, but we have corn breeders who, you know, living wealth, that just have a different perspective, and could make the presentation a little bit better. So there’s nothing wrong with me doing it on my own, but if I can bring someone from the breeding team who doesn’t get to have that grower interaction all the time, could we make it a little bit better? And could we, you know, could we give people a different experience? And I’ve been trying to, and that’s actually, that’s somewhere where my now field has probably impacted me, is I’ve been trying to look for opportunities like that a little bit more, yeah, where it’s like, I mean, yeah, I can. I can absolutely stand on a stage and talk about our hybrid lineup. That’s not, that’s not hard. But you know, if I brought someone else in, there’s, you know, very low cost, very low and, honestly, very low stakes as well. If they say, No, they don’t want to do that, then it’s like, oh, that’s fine. I’ll still do it by myself.

Jay Whetter  57:57

But how does it change the I really like that idea, Lauren, but how does it change the result? So you’ve gotten because often, I mean the models of our presentations. I don’t know how they got to this, but it’s like 45 minute, just a bunch of slides. Here’s, it’s an information dump, and then if there’s time, we’ll have a little Q and A, but I think we put Q and A so far to the side that farmers aren’t even like it to get the conversation going. We don’t. It just doesn’t, often doesn’t even happen. But I think that’s where, that’s where the delivery becomes effective, is when we have that two way conversation, and your idea of bringing in the breeder into that so the farmer can say, well, what? Why did you do this? Or this is what we need. And the breeders like, oh, okay, I’ve never heard that before. I’m so glad we had this conversation. You know, I think is there a better model for how we present ideas to farmers?

Lauren Benoit  58:58

Yeah, that actually rings a bell with with a conversation I had. I was actually talking to Josh Cowan at GFO the other day, and one of the things he mentioned that I thought was really, you know, impactful, and I thought it was good for me to hear it as well, was letting, I don’t convincing. I don’t want to say convincing, necessarily, but, you know, having growers understand that their feedback is also important. Like, if you are showing up to an agronomy day, the whole experience for everyone is going to be better if you ask questions and if you actually engage with the presentation, which I think might just be a little bit of a mindset shift, like we’re so used to, like, okay, sit through the 40 minute presentation, and then there’s 10 minutes for questions, for whatever there is that 10 minutes is right before lunch, so no one’s asking questions. So yeah, but just having having growers understand that they’re they’re in. Input, and their feedback helps make the system better, too. Like their 

Toban Dyck  1:00:05

I think we do. I agree. I like, I like that. And I think we, we say it a lot as of, kind of a pat, kind of, I’m not saying it’s Pat from you, Lauren. I’m just saying, like, I’ve said it too. I’m a producer as well. But, you know, it’s one thing to say that we value the input of producers and that we want to value the input of producers, but I think we need to do an extension, a better job of showing that we have valued the input and to show that what we’re showing you today is because we’ve been listening instead of just but don’t worry, we’re going to listen to you guys the implications that we haven’t been up until this point, but we’re going to start now, and we’re just so instead of saying we’re going to start, let’s show that we have been. And I think, I think our presentations and how we do things just need to kind of build that in, in a way that that builds that kind of understanding that, okay, we’re being listened to, as opposed to just telling them, Hey, we value your feedback. Fill out this survey, and it’s like, okay, great, I read it, but we, I think, I think, yeah, to really kind of internalize that and figure out what that what that means, and then change our own behaviors as extension people to show that we are listening without telling them,

Lauren Benoit  1:01:24

Yeah, that’s a sorry. I’ve had another thought. It’s one of the things that I think it’s funny, because as we’re listening to this, I’m like, Oh, these are ways that I could, like, implement this with the surveys. I mean, I have done, I’ve been on both sides of it. I’ve handed out surveys to ask for feedback, and I’ve also filled out a lot of surveys giving feedback. But, you know, I think if I’m creating a survey for an audience, if there’s a piece of if there’s a piece of feedback, or someone who’s clearly kind of, you know, put thought and effort into responding, actually, just giving them a call or reaching out to them and following up to ask more questions on what they had said or what some of their perspectives are. I think that’s going to be something I try and do. I don’t know the next time I’m going to have to give a survey on a presentation, because I do sometimes feel like in the extension space, you want to, you want to going back to kind of the KPIs we often track by volume. And sometimes I wonder if quality would be, would be a little bit of a maybe more tangible place to maybe not tangible, but like an easier place to start. So as an extension agent, instead of, instead of trying to reach everyone, how about you try and develop stronger relationships with, you know, five or six key growers who really understand their industries and their businesses, and kind of balance, like a quality versus quantity relationship, I don’t know.

Toban Dyck  1:03:03

Yeah, yeah. And to we develop ways to show that we’re that, that, that we’re we’re listening, right? So whether it’s, you know, in a present, in a practical environment, maybe it’s starting a presentation with showing some of the feedback you have gotten and how that’s directed your actions, and what that’s resulted in, right? You know, I’m just thinking out loud here, but, but instead of Yeah, I just hung up. I’m hung up on the idea. Instead of saying it, let’s do it. Let’s like, let’s Yeah, anyway,

Jay Whetter  1:03:34

So just on, just to pick up on that. I mean, Lauren, what are? What are, because this is such a big topic. We this is what we chat. We’re we kind of at the end of all of our conversations, we’re like, Okay, now what?

Toban Dyck  1:03:49

Saddled with this great responsibility?

Jay Whetter  1:03:51

So, are there? Are there things that in Canada, it’s like first steps toward something bigger, like, what do we need to be doing right now to set up for better,

Lauren Benoit  1:04:06

Yeah, I think with that, the first question is, when you say we do? You mean,

Jay Whetter  1:04:15

Yeah, pushing back to me, right, because I asked you earlier, who is? Who is everyone?

Toban Dyck  1:04:21

Yeah, okay, yeah, Jay, who is we?

Jay Whetter  1:04:25

I often I’m not a farmer, but I grew up on a farm, and my brother and my father are farmers. I often have my farmer hat on.

Toban Dyck  1:04:32

You’re an honorary

Jay Whetter  1:04:33

Yeah, yeah. So I default to farmers, because I think farmers can, can be or they are the leaders in this industry. So what, where do, where should farmers be pushing back to make the situation better for them and for agriculture in general, in Canada? So let’s say we as farmers.

Lauren Benoit  1:04:54

Yeah, okay, that helps. Because, yeah, I think, you know, I. As producers in the country, I think their biggest opportunity is to just start providing, start providing feedback, like actually looking at the system and trying to identify even like small tweaks or small changes that extension agents could make, and then actually providing that feedback in a constructive way. And maybe this is another thought, but I don’t want so one of the things that I valued about my time at Bayer, and this isn’t necessarily just Bayer, but in, you know, working for a corporate or working for a company, they provided training on how to have, you know, conversations where there was critiques and, like, training on how to have those conversations. And I don’t think growers have had access to that. So the idea of providing, you know, one on one critiques or one on one ideas could maybe be a little bit more intimidating if they’ve never been given the tools to kind of have those conversations. But I think if you’re always a grower, just finding little ways either acknowledge, if you’ve seen someone doing something really well, acknowledging it and letting them know on the positive side, but also, if there’s little ideas that you have to make something better, you know, recognizing that there’s a lot of value in those ideas, and, you know, taking, kind of taking a deep breath and putting those ideas out into a space that I think one of the things too, and this is maybe a little bit philosophical, in order for the industry to get better, I think we have to believe that it can be better, like, if we get too cynical, yeah, yeah. And if we don’t like the way things are, and we kind of just get a little complacent with it, we’re never going to have stronger networks or stronger relationships. But you know, in order for us to kind of hit a point where we have really strong grower networks or really strong research ecosystems, we have to believe that we’re capable of doing that, which I think we absolutely are.

Jay Whetter  1:07:04

Well, that’s really interesting, because often farmers and Canadian Prairies and and maybe Ontario farmers feel the same way too, that Ottawa just has no clue, and they’re they’re never going to listen to me and I’m just going to hate them and and then ignore them, but, yeah.

Lauren Benoit  1:07:22

It’s so easy to be cynical but like, I think kind of the brave thing, or the hard thing, would be to try, like, to try and try and see if they’ll be receptive, yeah?

Toban Dyck  1:07:37

I mean, yeah, I know we’ve got to, we have to actually wrap up right away is here, but which is always so fast, but, you know, with stuff like that, where it’s gonna, you know, we think about the improvements to agriculture, making it better, and you got to believe that it can be better. And that belief has to kind of fuel that, that that that that fight or initiative. You also have to kind of recognize the, I guess back to KPIs, you actually have to recognize when it does get better, right? Because I think in a lot of cases, you know, it’s like Western Canada. Western Canadian farmers are so used to fighting with Ottawa, right? Yeah, would they even recognize if Ottawa got better at listening to them? Would they be able to actually stop fighting? Or is that such an ingrained part of what we do that we can’t even recognize when things are improving. So, like, I think that’s a key part in these you know, is you get, you get kind of locked into a mode of being, like a behavior is right? So you’re always fighting Ottawa. It’s like farmers versus government. Well, if a government started listening tomorrow, say, hypothetically, would anybody actually recognize that, right? So, that’s great, you know, what is, you know, you have to, you have to, kind of, I mean, that’s, that’s a hard one. That’s a really difficult philosophical, psychological, you know, contemplation, to end with. But it is. It is something for sure.

Lauren Benoit  1:09:03

And yeah, just to kind of echo that a little bit more like, as much as it’s like, it’s, it’s, yeah, like, I think it’s absolutely a two way street where it’s like, if you have farmers fighting with Ottawa, and farmers saying, Oh, they never listen. And then you know, certain officials in Ottawa saying, Oh, they’re never happy with us.

Toban Dyck  1:09:20

Yeah, right, yeah.

Lauren Benoit  1:09:22

Like, it’s like, well, then it’s easier to just not work with them.

Toban Dyck  1:09:27

But yeah, we get locked into these loops right where it’s just they gotta kind of, yeah. Anyway, we do wrap up all right.

Jay Whetter  1:09:37

So, so Lauren, when, when Toban and I reached out to you, or Ashley, maybe did the actual official reaching out for this, and asked if you wanted to participate. Was there something that you thought, yeah, I want to do. I want to talk with these two guys, and I want to tell them this, like, was there something, was there a point that you wanted to get across?

Lauren Benoit  1:09:56

No, not in particular. This is a little bit of. A of a way back to the very beginning. But one of the things that I’ve kind of found funny about this project, and so one of the reasons I chose this project was because, for me, it was actually a learning opportunity like it. This isn’t a space where I actually have a lot of lived experience. I have a lot of, you know, observatory experience, like I’ve I’m obviously familiar with omafa, I’m familiar with, you know, the networks I’ve been a part of in various grower groups, but I’ve always kind of been a little bit of an outside observer, but for me looking kind of career wise, it’s an area that I would really like to be more involved in, and like more involved in collaborations and kind of helping facilitate some of these connections. So it’s been such a funny thing to do this project where, to be completely honest, I felt like I had no, no, not, no right to take on but, you know, this isn’t an area where I have a huge depth of experience and a lot of skills, it was kind of just off the deep end a little bit. So one of the things I love about conversations like this is, like, I don’t ever know where they’re gonna go. We don’t either. Yeah, like, it’s, I kind of intentionally chose something that was a little bit outside, not a little bit in a lot of days, it was a lot outside my wheelhouse. So it’s been just such a funny thing to to hear what other people have thought about it, or what things you guys have kind of picked up on that were insightful or impactful, but yeah, like it’s, yeah, I’m an agronomist from Ontario. I love it, yeah, now I’m in Saskatoon.What has happened?

Jay Whetter  1:11:50

But I like your point about, you know, one, one person, one idea, and you’d share it. So I mean, if there’s a takeaway for me. It’s, it’s your your message that let’s be open to any sort of ideas, bring them out into the open air and discuss them, and maybe 99% will go nowhere but, but eventually we’ll find those few that really can, can make a difference, and we won’t know those few unless we start talking about them.

Lauren Benoit  1:12:24

But, yeah, I think if, if we can leave on that, if that can kind of be the key deliverable, I think that’s a happy I would love it if people only listen to 10 seconds, that’s the clip I would like them to listen

Toban Dyck  1:12:36

Awesome, awesome. I like that. Well, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.

Jay Whetter  1:12:42

Thanks, Lauren. It was great chatting with you. We’ll see we’ll see each other again many times.

Lauren Benoit  1:12:46

Yes, yes, yeah, let me know if you’re in Saskatoon and yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity. It’s been so much fun to to chat, and even with the report, I mean, it lived in my head for like, two years. So now that I’ve kind of put it out into the world, it’s, it’s a it’s nice to get feedback on it and hear what other people have said.

Jay Whetter  1:13:06

Yeah, we’ll share a link to it in our Yeah, in our notes, for sure. Hey there, listeners. If you’re enjoying the conversations here on The Extensionists, you will probably love to get our newsletter.

Toban Dyck  1:13:19

Yeah, it’s the best way to stay connected with us, with Jay and and myself. Yours truly, I’m excited about the newsletter to be honest with you, because I think, well, so many of our guests have sorry. Why are you excited about say that differently, Jay, so many of our guests are. They say so many things of interest, right? And I feel like the newsletter be a great will be a great way to share that with our listeners.

Jay Whetter  1:13:45

Quick take homes, yeah, summaries, yeah, absolutely, one liners.

Toban Dyck  1:13:49

Absolutely, absolutely, I think about each, each. Guess we could probably write a whole bunch of articles from each of our guests, right? So to give our our newsletter subscribers like summaries of, you know, the key takeaways of these things, plus, plus information on upcoming guests. All they got to do, all the listeners have to do is go to theextensions.com and follow the prompts to sign up for the newsletter. I think it’ll be, I think it’d be great. 

Toban Dyck  1:14:40

That was a that was, that was a good chat.

Jay Whetter  1:14:42

I enjoyed that Lauren was just so natural. Yeah, she came across this. It was a really nice conversation.

Toban Dyck  1:14:49

Yeah, it was, it was just kind of like a discussion of kind of ideas. I I liked, I know you, I know you have a takeaway, because you mentioned it in the, in the in the podcast. But. It’s like, the idea of, like, we were talking about collaboration, and she’s like, you know, just to, just to, there was, there was a time when we were talking about collaboration, and she was urging people to just to do it. Like, if you have the idea for people to come into the room, like, don’t wait for other people to do it. Start small. Start with, like, these big collaborations that we have, that we’re used to, these kind of, yeah, these, these, these traditional ones. They all started small. And I like that idea. So you don’t I think about it personally. I think, like, okay, even as birth forest group, or the stuff we do with extension, we should reach out to University of Guelph and like, why don’t we just make the call? Like, why? Why do I think that we shouldn’t or, or that they wouldn’t be interested? We should start like, or I should start doing that. And that was what, that was a really key. That was a key for me. 

Jay Whetter  1:15:52

I’m just thinking of when we, I met Lauren at that AG, extension conference in Guelph. Oh, you did okay, yeah. And I’m just thinking of that, that conference, first annual, was last October. I mean, that’s our that’s our wheelhouse,

Toban Dyck  1:16:11

So our people, yeah,

Jay Whetter  1:16:13

So, you’ve got ideas, or if I have ideas for you know how to make the conference better next time around. I mean, are they receptive? Who knows? But they we won’t know unless we kind of, I know, pass, put some ideas together and share them.

Toban Dyck  1:16:27

Yeah, I I like that. I like that a lot.

Jay Whetter  1:16:31

And so the so I’d like to pick up on an idea that you flagged, yeah, partway through. And that’s about getting farmers involved in any sort of extension conversation, even extension communications training. So what were you thinking there? So that was like, have farmers at our at our training

Toban Dyck  1:16:48

Wasn’t it a previous podcast, wasn’t it? No, that was this one, but it said, Get farmers involved.

Jay Whetter  1:16:53

I’m pretty sure it was this one. Doesn’t matter.

Toban Dyck  1:16:59

It was, it wasn’t that yet, because of the question, Dyck. Because we were talking about, like she was talking about having, listening to farmers, yeah, getting them, making sure they’re listened to. I get, I get frustrated when we when industry, or who, whomever, even myself, when I say I want to do something, or I’m going to do something, and it’s like, Is there value in even saying it, or is there more value in just, okay, doing the work like I personally, what do I what do I need to do change to actually do the thing that I say I’m going to do. I don’t need to tell farmers I’m going to listen to them. I just need to listen to them, and then I need to show that I’m listening to them. So I think getting farmers in the room absolutely super valuable. But then also showing that the last time you got farmers in the room, you listen to them and so, and that is, you know, that is affecting what you’re presenting to them this time, you know, as opposed to just like that, that that Pat thing that you say to be like, Okay, next, you know, I’m gonna listen to you now. I mean, it’s like, well, haven’t you been right? And I don’t know, I feel like that’s something we should personalize it, something I need to do, be better at.

Jay Whetter  1:18:14

It just made me think of our ag days, like, maybe our ag next year, if we do an ag days live recording. It’s just like a town hall, just the two of us talking to the farmers in the group, yeah, rather than having a guest just like, What does extension mean to you? And what do you need from extension?

Toban Dyck  1:18:33

Yeah, be great. That’d be amazing. Actually, good, yeah, I think, yeah. Like that collaboration piece is a, it’s a big one. And, I mean, also, like, you know, I’m always fascinated by people who’ve gone to like, so she Australia, she spent time there. And Australia comes up all the time in, AG, a like, so many people. And the Netherlands, I mean, and the Netherlands,

Jay Whetter  1:18:57

Those are the two countries that often like, I don’t know about they lead the world in certain ways.

Toban Dyck  1:19:03

Yeah, yeah, small Netherlands, such a small career than Australia. Massive, massive thing. And, yeah, I but I mean, again, I’m gonna go on a tangent here and go to probably end right aways. But just like so you, you have this world, this globe, it’s full of different models for doing things, and some of them are kind of are quite successful, and yet we can study them, we can go visit them, but it’s just such a tough thing to bring those models back. And I get why it’s complicated, because it’s completely different. But how can we just be better at Hey, like, collaborating on that macro scale too. It’s like, oh, hey, okay, we’re not strong in this, you know, Canadian government. We’re not strong in this field. This country is and it’s working. What like? How can we just yeah, anyway. No, give. Sponsor. Key takeaways?

Jay Whetter  1:20:03

Well, I, my key takeaway was the which you expressed is just this, starting small, like if you’ve got an idea, share it, talk it through, be open to critical feedback, and then, and then, sort of building from something you think, well, this, maybe this maybe this will work. That’s, that’s, that’s expand the the conversation. And then then an idea kind of takes shape into something that we can really work with. I like that.

Toban Dyck  1:20:34

Yeah, I know is. And the whole, the whole time that part of the conversation and thinking. How many people have great ideas, but don’t express them because they don’t want to, they don’t want to be responsible for doing the work behind it, right? You know, that’s like, that’s a, that’s a thing, right? Yeah, you know, think of like volunteer boards. How many people stay quiet because they know if they raise their hand, they’re gonna, they’re gonna have to be the ones to do it, right? So great ideas just kind of sit there, unexpressed,

Jay Whetter  1:21:08

And then, yeah, they’ll come around when people have the energy to get them done. This has been the extensionists. I’m Jay Whetter 

Toban Dyck  1:21:16

I’m Toban Dyck.

Jay Whetter  1:21:17

 Spread the word brother. This has been a burr forest group production.

Toban Dyck  1:21:23

Jay, did you know that the podcast couldn’t happen without the hard work of the people behind the scenes

Jay Whetter  1:21:29

And I’ve got their names right here. They are: Abby Wall, producer and editor, Ashley Robinson, researcher, and Michelle McMullen, marketer.