Episode 23:

Meaghan Seagrave

Transcript

Toban Dyck  00:03

This is the extensionist conversations with great thinkers in agriculture. I’m

Jay Whetter  00:07

Toban Dyck and I’m Jay Wen. Hey, Toban. Hey Jay. We have a guest today. We do. I’ve never met or even heard of Megan Seagrave before. How did you meet her? So you find her

Toban Dyck  00:23

couple couple of things, two part question in response. That’s for our producer. She loves my two part questions. Making can’t be the first one that you’ve never heard of before. There’s been other guests. I mean, probably most of them you have, hey, yeah, yeah. Maybe there have been others. Yeah. There have just this one was this one was stood out. It’s kind of like, how does Toban know this person? What’s the connection? It’s an interesting story. Yeah,

Jay Whetter  00:48

yeah. It’s like, Nicolas Cage, like, why am I not in this movie? You know that asset, Elsie? How do I not know this person, this amazing brain? How do have I never met her before? Am I not connected to industry within Canada. No, I’m not. But anyway,

Toban Dyck  01:02

speaking of which, I saw Nicholas Cage is in like, a new surfing movie, which is just like, it’s so bizarre, like, anyway, anyway, anyway, I’m not gonna watch it. I don’t think, yeah, it was bizarre. So, so birth forest groups project manager Ashley Robinson did a we were searching for kind of companies that get cluster or organizations that get cluster funding through the federal government. And so, you know, we came across bio industries. Bio get this right.

Jay Whetter  01:37

Bio industrial innovation Canada,

Toban Dyck  01:41

bio industrial innovation Canada, we came across them, and so Google Search Megan Seagraves name came up. It was a cold call. And give her a shout. We had a great meeting, phone call or email tonight, you know, because we’re talking about cold calls. So I went with call, yeah, I do both. So, yeah, I’m of the above, that kind of, you know, yeah, I may have done. I may have emailed first, because I was probably a day where I was emailing a lot of people, but, but I do. I’m not, not opposed to picking up the phone, and I do do that once in a while, for sure. And there’s value in that.

Jay Whetter  02:19

Oh, yeah, this is a classic example, but what other values, when you think of the value, what do you what are you thinking?

Toban Dyck  02:25

Well, so I the value is a she got back to me quite promptly, and was interested in chatting. And then we chatted, and we had such an interesting conversation about what she does and who she is and what she represents for the for the industry, which, you know, really, really, really excited to get into. And it was just, it was one of those conversations where you think everybody needs to hear this, yeah, I It’s too much for me to take in. It was just being like a wash in this, in this new perspective on something that I I feel like, I know. I mean, not like, not so well. I mean, or No, I would not perfectly. I know quite well, the ag industry and kind of, it’s, it’s imaginations, right? But this was like, holy cow. This has been going on all the time. This is happening right now.

Jay Whetter  03:21

So, so just kind of cold research and then a cold call. I love it. Good lesson, never know what you’re gonna get. Yeah, we’re gonna find lots of future guests this way. No, so let’s get on with the conversation. We’re the extensionists, and we are going to chat with Megan Seagrave. Joy, you

Jay Whetter  03:44

Hey there, listeners. If you’re enjoying the conversations here on the extensionist, you will probably love to get our newsletter.

Toban Dyck  03:50

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

Jay Whetter  04:16

like quick take homes, yeah? Summaries, yeah, absolutely, one liner, absolutely, absolutely.

Toban Dyck  04:21

I think about each each guest, 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 listeners have to do is go to the extensions calm and follow the prompts to sign up. I think it’ll be I think it’s

Jay Whetter  04:50

alright. Our guest today is Megan Seagrave, who’s the executive director of bio industrial innovation Canada, and before we get into bio. Industrial innovation Canada and chemistry and extension Megan, we we know that you are a traveler. One of the things you like to do is travel. What’s the favorite when I’m going to ask you your the favorite place you’ve ever been? And I know you’re going to think it’s like 25 different things. But when, when someone asks you that question, what’s the first image that pops into your head,

Meaghan Seagrave  05:25

the Port of Rotterdam? Which probably sounds like an odd response, but I really like the industrial nature of ports. I like the industrial nature of just industrial economies. And Europe is filled with them, Belgium, you know, very industrial economy. Love traveling through Belgium, because you’ve got this old world, Old City. You know, you’re wandering through the streets. You might as well be in Paris, and then the next minute, you’re along a riverfront, and it’s heavy industry. And that, to me, is really cool. I like driving the highways in the back of, you know, the back countries of these, of these countries in these regions, and stopping at bio gas plants and knocking on the door and going, Hey, hi. I’m a lowly Canadian, and this looks really cool. Can you tell me about

Jay Whetter  06:15

it? Tell me about your bio gas so have you done that? I have done that.

Toban Dyck  06:21

Share a story where you just like, walked up to a place that you thought would be interesting.

Meaghan Seagrave  06:25

So there’s, there’s a large sugar cooperative and factory in in the Netherlands called suka Rooney. It’s all sugar beet based. They do a lot of it’s a massive bio refinery. So they do everything from biofuels to bio gas to bio based products and sugar the same way that we would have like Rogers sugar or Atlantic sugar. Here in Canada, they do sugar from sugar beets. And couple of colleagues and I had an extra day, so we rented a car and started driving around, and literally drove up to this super uni plant. Didn’t know what it was, because it didn’t have a sign outside of it, but it was massive. So we drive up to the gate, and I roll down the window, and this, this security guard is like, you know, in Dutch, she’s like, What do you want? And and I was like, Hi, we’re, we’re Canadians. Just curious what this is, you know, he said we were out for a drive and wanted to know, and he’s like, Oh, it’s a sugar beet plant. And of course, I was like, no, shit, you know, any chance we could meet someone? And they were like, No, we’re closed for retrofit. And they take like, two weeks or three weeks every year, or they shut the plant down. They clean everything, they do all the maintenance and upkeep. And I was like, Oh, that’s really too bad. I said, is there anyone here that we could just talk to? You know, we’ve come all the way from Canada

Jay Whetter  07:50

and just to see superintendent. Well, maybe not, not

Meaghan Seagrave  07:53

for that. But so he makes a few phone calls and and then the gate opens and we drive in, and this, this gentleman, one of the VPs, comes down, and he’s like, What are you here for? And I said, Well, actually, it was just, we just happened to be out for a drive and happened to buy we are chemists and engineers, but we’re from Canada, and this is the area we play in. And he’s like, Oh, do you want to tour? And I said, Absolutely. So he made us lunch. We had a tour, we had coffee. We were there for about three hours, and it was brilliant. And all it was was, I wonder what this is. This looks really cool. Let’s knock on the door and see who answers.

Jay Whetter  08:36

So what a great tourist approach. So just back to the Port of Rotterdam. I’m curious too. Yeah, like, what? What is I’ve been through Rotterdam. I’ve been to Amsterdam, but Rotterdam is not necessarily high in the list of tourist places for people, but it is for you, because you love ports. So what describe, for me, what the Port of Rotterdam looks like.

Meaghan Seagrave  08:57

So the Port of Rotterdam is probably the second largest port in the world, second or third and continuously growing. The interesting thing about the Dutch is, you know that the country of the Netherlands started off this big, and as they use their technologies for, you know, water displacement, it’s grown to triple its size. So it’s actually a physically growing country, and consequently, the Port of Rotterdam is actually growing in size, and it is. It was probably the world’s largest petroleum based port, and they’re now about 30% bio based, and they’re moving towards being completely sustainable and net zero by 2050, if not sooner. So massive transition. They are also the the one of the number one ports where Canadian biomass, primarily in the form of chips and pellets, is exported in. To and then redistribute it into Turkey in the UK and other other regions. But the the other interesting thing about the Port of Rotterdam is they are all about sustainability. They have a math, massive road map that they are building on to net zero and sustainability, and it’s been underway for 20 plus years, so we as Canadians are far behind. Have a lot to learn, but they also reach out, so they have partnerships with probably half a dozen ports and regions across Canada to share their learnings, share their best practices and share what they’ve done with the hopes that they can develop additional partnerships here in Canada and North America.

Toban Dyck  10:45

Do you get a sense that that that we’re listening here in Canada, there

Meaghan Seagrave  10:51

are some regions that are taking steps and initiatives to do that. I wouldn’t say all of them. We shackle and handcuff a lot of our ports because they are economic drivers and naturally, economic developers, but that’s not the mandates that they’ve been given. So they don’t often have the tools and the resources to to play that role. And there’s an expectation from the regions and the provinces that they’re in that they do play that role. So we it’s, you know, it’s about connecting those dots and understanding how we can better support the opportunities to align across sectors, industries utilize the assets that we have.

Jay Whetter  11:38

You said, the ports, their their mandates aren’t economic development in Canada, no, they’re not. What are their mandates? Just to move stuff around,

Meaghan Seagrave  11:46

yeah, essentially, you know, to support the leaseholders and those industry players and stakeholders who are utilizing those assets to do trade. And that’s it.

Jay Whetter  11:58

One of the things that I wanted to talk, to talk to you about later on, which we’ll get to, which is really exciting, because I love that you think about this is Canadian Canada’s productivity issue and and part of it, maybe, I mean, this is one example where we, we kind of shackle institutions and industries with this is what you’re supposed to be doing. You just do that. We’ll leave innovation up to someone else, and usually it’s nobody. But anyway, this will be exciting, but before we get there, we need to know about what bio industrial innovation Canada is. I’ve never heard of it.

Toban Dyck  12:36

I attempted to explain it to Jay, so I but I think we should leave that explanation out of this podcast entirely and go with yours.

Meaghan Seagrave  12:44

Yeah. So listen, we’re, we’re kind of a complex organization. We get, we get siloed as a bit of an accelerator. Our focus is green chemistry. We’ve been around since 2008 started in Sarnia and in Sarnia, Ontario, and have expanded nationally to build out additional bio based or industrial bio based clusters. We develop programming and support early stage. And by early stage I mean, like pre seed and seed investments into bio based technologies and technologies that fit along a green chemistry value chain. So think about, think about any product that gets created from the oil and gas sector. You’ve got fuels and energy, you’ve got primary chemicals, polymers and chemicals, semi finished goods, finished goods, etc. All along that value chain, all of that can actually be displaced or replaced by bio based inputs coming from agriculture, coming from forestry, and in some cases even marine and fisheries, biomass and feedstocks. So we play along that value chain and develop programs to help those early stage companies that are building those technologies to de fossilize or displace those fossil based inputs and decarbonize across industries, programs that will help them overcome commercialization hurdles and become investment ready and bring investment into Canada to allow those innovations to scale,

Jay Whetter  14:24

which is maybe another reason why you like the Port of Rotterdam, because he said it’s 30% already bio based Energy there. Yeah, fossilizing?

Toban Dyck  14:37

Yeah. What is

Jay Whetter  14:40

green chemistry and and why? What is it about chemistry in particular? That’s what’s that’s so important. What is it about that science that is key here?

Meaghan Seagrave  14:52

So when we think about like oil and gas, is all chemistry, it’s chemistry and Engineering and Chemical Engineering. Combination of the two, the foundation of Canada’s economy is mixed, and it’s oil and gas, AG, forestry, fisheries and fisheries and marine. That’s essentially it. We really don’t have much else. When you start to look at things like automotive and aerospace and it they are fractional compared to those industries. Green Chemistry is taking everything that we currently do with a non sustainable source, which is pumping oil out of the ground, and all of that making its way into a multitude of sectors and industries across our country, whether it’s energy, transportation, automotive, aerospace, food, construction, you name it. And displacing those inputs with green based primary chemicals, green based energy, green based polymers, green based goods, products, semi finished goods, you name it. So green chemistry is really just about the fossilization and displacement of those existing fossil based incumbents. Many folks don’t really understand the the amount of fossil based products that are in our society, likely the couch you’re sitting on contains significant amount of fossil based inputs, the clothes you’re wearing, the microphones you’re speaking into the carpet underneath your feet, the walls around your building, the paints that coat them. So the technologies that we support are about identification and validation of technologies that are going to displace and remove or displace the incumbents of those fossil based inputs. So using the resource based sectors that we have, which is agriculture and forestry for the most part, a little bit on the marine and fisheries side.

Jay Whetter  17:02

How closely do you get involved in in those those projects, those innovations? How hands on are you? We

Meaghan Seagrave  17:10

are very hands on. So we’re not your typical accelerator. We’re not going to help anyone. I shouldn’t say we’re not going to but we don’t traditionally help people build a business plan or do their market intelligence, we can support that, but that’s not our area of expertise. We are chemists and engineers and chemical engineers for the most part, so we’re good at identification and validation and then understanding what it’s going to take to build and scale that technology and turn it into a pilot or a demonstration or a scaled up, commercial based facility. And then we, you know, we embed our resources so my staff get embedded into these companies in roles where they help them overcome those commercial, commercialization hurdles that we know they’re going to encounter, because we all have experience building these types of technologies.

Jay Whetter  18:08

Well, that’s really interesting. So you’re embedded the way the CFIA embeds a vet into major animal processing facilities. So and is this a long term embedment? If that’s a word, like, what is and what, how involved are they involved in as much as the company wants them to be, or are they really pushing hard on some some initiatives and sort of leading the company

Meaghan Seagrave  18:35

so it can be any or all of the above? It’s, it is really up to the company. We don’t, we don’t support.

Jay Whetter  18:43

So on that note, then, does the company phone you and say, Could you please embed somebody we’re trying to build something here? Or, how does that happen?

Meaghan Seagrave  18:51

So it’s usually an introduction by, you know, a third party, whether it’s a government agency, you know, maybe it’s the NRC, maybe it’s maybe it’s just a colleague within another organization. We get an introduction into these companies, and the first thing we do is look over the technology and spend a lot of time with the with the developers or the founders of the technology, so that we understand it. And if we believe that it has legs from a technical perspective, we are able to validate it, and we think that it’s got promise and opportunity from a Canadian perspective, keeping that IP here the opportunity to adopt or adapt that IP for existing economic opportunities, regardless of where they are in Canada. And then we work with we work with those founders to help them understand the hurdles that we think that they are going to encounter as they start to scale up. So a good analogy would be baking a cake. If, if you are baking a cake at home, maybe it’s a box cake, you follow the instructions. Directions, everything works out perfectly. You go to double that cake. It may be two boxes, but the instructions are going to change because the chemistry changes as you as you scale things up. So maybe the first box required two eggs. You add a second box. You may only require one egg, or you may just require a yolk and two whites. So those are the types of hurdles that these companies encounter as they begin to scale those technologies, and we essentially help with validating what those hurdles are going to be and then helping them overcome them. We don’t we don’t hand hold, per se, but we are there to support. We’re there to advise. We’re there to share our own knowledge and expertise, bring others around the table as a team. The other sort of interesting play is we get together every couple of weeks as a team. We talk about what we’re working on. It’s a cone of silence, but it’s also an opportunity for everyone to say, we’re running into this hurdle, or I’ve been asked to build build something, and I’ve never built anything like this before. Has anyone else built one? Oh, you know, others around the table put their hand up and say, Oh, I built one, or I’ve got some designs that might help, and if you want to pass by any drawings, or if you want me to help do any calculations, then you know, we freely sort of share that knowledge and expertise around the table so that those embedded assets all go back to the companies to to Relay and support the initiatives that they are taking on.

Toban Dyck  21:44

So in your experience with all the people that you’ve worked with, all the companies and startups and whomever you’ve worked with, are there, are there quite a few shared hurdles? Or can you, can you, can you walk in and kind of guess what their hurdles will be?

Meaghan Seagrave  21:59

Yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s a guess, per se, every one of them is going to be slightly different. But when you’ve scaled, you know, if you’re talking about metallurgical technologies, or if you’re talking about technologies, they’re all, you know, everything has kind of a chemistry base, or at least, where we play, has a chemistry base. So you can see what is going to be needed and likely what is going to happen. You still have to walk through those stages and those steps to validate that at each one of those at each one of those stages, this isn’t this is nothing like, you know, creating an app in your mom’s basement while you eat pizza, and 12 months down the road you are revenue generating, and 72 months down the road you are selling your company for a couple million to a group outside this is heavy capex, hard tech, Significant commercialization hurdles, displacement of existing incumbents. So you’ve got industries that may not be open initially to adoption and adaption of these technologies, because we haven’t had the urgencies within Canada to push those industries to change, but there’s an absolute need, and then the ability to kind of connect that back to our resource based sectors, to me, is just a no brainer. When we talk, or I say we, when Carney talks about, you know, the one Canadian economy and nation building projects, this is it, and this is what we’ve been doing for the last 15 years.

Toban Dyck  23:35

Yeah, and do you feel that you have a good sense of all like you, you know, you talk about your interest in components, you know, at an early stage in your in your career, and how they all play together. Do you in your mind? Do you have a pretty good picture of how all these components in Canada work together, and how the how that all looks, how that landscape looks?

Meaghan Seagrave  23:58

I think so. I would never propose to be an expert at anything. I think I’m a little bit of a generalist in the true sense. But if we think about, you know, I I talked about silos and mandates, and you asked us that question early on, if we go back to our funding programs, whether they’re provincial or federal. They’re all siloed, right? And they’re siloed either by sector or they’re siloed by industry. When you’re dealing with value chains and the technologies that we deal with, they don’t fit into any of those silos. They tend to be cross sectoral in terms of the feedstock opportunities. They also tend to be cross industrial in terms of their nature and applications. So an opportunity that may exist for light weighting could also be beneficial to construction, could be beneficial to automotive, could be beneficial to aerospace and defense. Yet when we look at the way programs get funded. Both provincially and federally. AFC deals with anything starting with AG, but they don’t have a mandate for economic development. NRCan deals with anything starting with a forest resource, but they don’t have mandate for economic development. I said, has the mandate for economic development, but the RDC, RDA is across the country. The regional development agencies across the country all have their own focus areas, and most of them don’t touch AG, forestry, fisheries and marine because they believe those fall under AFC, intercan and DFO. So you’ve got these big disconnects, right and and then you’ve got these technologies that end up falling between the cracks because they don’t fit. It’s that square peg round hole kind of analogy. Yet these are opportunities that can trans industrially transform so many of our, probably all of our manufacturing industries in this country.

Jay Whetter  26:00

Well, you’re from New Brunswick and, and I’m just thinking of you talked about displacing incumbents, and I think about Irving oil’s refinery at St John and, and, and then the the green chemistry, you know, biofuels, are they at all? I mean, this is my mind is kind of racing around this issue, but, but so is deserving have any vested interest or or interest in pursuing biofuels? If not, then we’ve got to ramp up biofuels to the stage where they’re displacing Irving and then, and then. So, just to round out the scenario, a little bit more, who on this, you just mentioned these government agencies. So the biofuels fall under agriculture. They fall under an arcane actually, they fall under, wow, all right, so, so there’s nobody who really takes full responsibility, or if it’s really that siloed, is in our can trickling down into the agriculture industry. You’re shaking your head for people who are only listening. So how do we walk through this massive issue in Canada? Yeah, what’s the solution? Yeah, like, how do you push us toward a solution in that scenario?

Meaghan Seagrave  27:25

So you’ve got a handful of questions in in there. You know, with regards to Irving, they’re actually a really interesting, I think they’re really interesting organization and company, quite closed and siloed in and of themselves, but they’re an international trading entity, so they already trade in ethanol, they trade in renewable fuels, they trade in all of those. So they’re fully aware of what that landscape looks like in the opportunity and the future of oil and gas. They’re looking 25 and 30 years out, every single day. The The other opportunity around them in their assets is refineries. Are refineries, whether they are fossil based or whether they are bio based, they’re refineries. So there are residuals and waste streams that that refinery in st John creates that could be utilized and brought into other industrial based processes. St John is a massive energy hub opportunity. The Irving’s own mining assets. They own oil refinery assets. They own renewable fuels assets bringing those all to bear, or at least understanding how they’re all interconnected, or the opportunity to connect the dots between them and use them as inward investment attraction for additional technologies. Maybe that could leverage the gray hydrogen coming off the refinery, like volumes and volumes of gray hydrogen that could then be utilized for energy sources, or gas fermentation capture, which reduces their, you know, greenhouse gas emissions and creates additional chemical resources that could then be sold under their banner, like there’s, it’s just a matter of looking at it in in a different aspect. I guess coming at it with maybe

Jay Whetter  29:30

Irving is a bad example, in that they’re already quite integrated. But I’m sorry, you’re speaking like a chemist, and you’re over my head often. What is, what is gray hydrogen, just to dig a little sidebar,

Meaghan Seagrave  29:44

it’s just what it’s its source is coming from. So because it’s coming out of an oil refinery, it’s not going to be considered green, which means it’s not coming from a renewable source, okay, but they’re producing significant amounts of it, so why not utilize. It you, instead of wasting it right, utilize it as an input and to reduce the energy consumption of another industry player, or to reduce the energy load on another industry player, Co Location can,

Jay Whetter  30:21

again, my I think of Irving, and I’m thinking, how does government help or get out of the way and let them just run with it? Because they’re, you said they’re 2530 years into the future, which is probably way ahead of anyone in agriculture and definitely way ahead of anyone in government. So there’s that question, but maybe we could park that, because I want then go back to this, this agriculture issue, agriculture innovations within agriculture, especially in the green fuels. Do we have a government situation that is hampering potential progress there, because the jurisdictions are overlapping and siloed and not streamlined enough.

Meaghan Seagrave  31:02

I think we are. You’ve, you’ve hit on a couple of points. So we’re at this inflection point, if we think about, you know, Kearney talking about a one Canadian economy, nation building projects, but agriculture doesn’t usually fit in to those, because agriculture is funded by province, little bit by region. So it’s, it’s, again, you’ve got these borders that we’re dealing with the the other hurdle is, we haven’t had any urgency in this country, right? We have, we’ve got, you know, 100 million acres of agricultural land. We’ve got like 500,000 hectares of forestry in this province and in this country that we can leverage. But a lot of it goes unleveraged, underutilized. I mean, just the province of New Brunswick, I think it was 2022 they identified a million acres of agricultural land that had been abandoned just in a short period of time, and more and more of it was being, you know, taken out of production because they just didn’t have the farmers to farm it. Well, we look at these as hurdles, but, I mean, the rest of the world looks at this as opportunities. We have no shortage of land. We have no shortage of water, maybe Alberta, you know, a little bit drought. But apart from that, we have all of the assets. And frankly, from a climate perspective, I think you’re going to see Nova Scotia and New Brunswick slowly turn into the next Napa Valley, with regards to the agricultural crops that they are going to be able to grow, because the weather here is changing so much and so fast, but we’re not being impacted. So we don’t have the same urgencies that California is suffering, that Texas is suffering, I mean that Europe is suffering. We’re not dealing with the policies that Europe has to deal with in terms of the Green Deal, which is restricting what they can plant, where they can plant it, and how much they can plant. Same thing on the forestry side, we don’t have policies around deforestation here. Frankly, we only harvest, you know, 2% of our allowable cut in this country. Across the country, 2% of the allowable cut in the allowable cut is less than 20% of our cut. So like we’re talking very small numbers, which represent opportunities for inward investment. They represent opportunities for existing industries to come and play, or existing industries that are here to invest and grow, if we could get our act together across the siloed departments ensure that they all have either similar mandates, or we create nation building projects that allow for those cross sectoral and cross industrial opportunities. Maybe the way that I said had approached to the super clusters, you know, a decade ago. Yeah, just a fun

Toban Dyck  34:21

Yeah, are you? Are you hoping to bring some of this into the new ag policy framework as those discussions start in the next year or two?

Meaghan Seagrave  34:29

You know, I feel like we have been talking about this since about 2017 same thing over and over again, and innate to shift within a single department is a very difficult thing to do. AFC is a difficult department to make anything happen in. They’re great they’ve got great researchers. They are very knowledgeable. Experience. Staff, but big cogs, and to try and get them to shift and change even around those policy frameworks.

Jay Whetter  35:09

But you said earlier, AFC has no mandate for economic development, which is just, and I totally understand that, and believe that, obviously, when it’s not a matter of belief, it’s a fact, but that’s very interesting, that that’s not it’s not our mandate, so we’re not going to bother with that. And then why would anybody take initiative? Because there’s probably not a lot of appreciation for initiative within some agencies. You said something earlier, and I wrote down no urgency. I’m not sure that’s the right word you use. But why Canada is not innovating? And was that the phrase, yep, no urgency, right? So that, and you may give the Napa Valley example of how the climate change in the Annapolis Valley or parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick could be growing grapes and producing wine, but why bother? Like, why would we need to do that? Like, there’s we could, but who cares? Like, we’re happy with what we’re doing now. Like, so I want to kind of evolve into the extension communications part of this, and we have been talking about it, because this is all about the silos. But how in the world do we move from complacency, which seems to be a Canadian trait in large parts of the population, complacency, to urgency, like, how do we get at the root of canadianness when it comes to industrial development? Yeah,

Toban Dyck  36:36

and what’s the opportunity for you? Know, you have Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Annapolis Valley. Great opportunity there, potentially. What’s the opportunity for producers here, you know, say, even in the prairies, is there, is there a way, you know, farmers can modernize, or that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s imputing too much, but, yeah, change anyway.

Meaghan Seagrave  36:56

So from an urgency perspective, or to bring urgency to me, causes, causes industry to change, or forces industry to change. And we’ve, we’ve had the kick in the pants from the US, or the administration in the US, right, Trump imposing tariffs, not just on, you know, the goods that we are importing, whether it’s raw resources or whether it’s an entire industry like automotive that kick in the pants has forced our producers, whether they’re AG, forestry, marine fisheries, to look at additional markets or to look At at different markets from the US Europe is probably the, the most, I guess, the closest market to us that we would look at from an export or partnership opportunity perspective. Europe has a lot of hurdles when it comes to land, when it comes to cost of energy when it comes to the types of goods that they allow into their country. So that is going to force our industries to change the way they do things. Hence, the urgency is coming, and it’s starting to push things like our producers and our industries and our manufacturers, so the exporting into the US, I don’t want to say it’s been easy, but it’s a known exercise. We’ve been doing it for 100 years. They are a major export partner. Exporting into Europe is is somewhat known, but becoming more and more fraught with hurdles, and those hurdles have all been related to the Green Deal policy coming down from the European Union that has said, if you cannot demonstrate the carbon intensity of your product and that it is equivalent or lower carbon intensity to existing products here in Europe, we’re going to tear a few on those imports. That’s everything. Doesn’t matter if it’s an raw agricultural product being exported or if it’s, I don’t know, a computer or a piece of equipment that we are exporting, or a piece of furniture. Our manufacturers and our producers, frankly, don’t have a lot of experience doing that. They haven’t been forced to do it. They haven’t even had to really think about it. But little by little, these are becoming evident hurdles, and as economic developers, we need to help the we need to help our SMEs and our M and E’s understand that there is a great opportunity, and we are very well aligned with Europe, and we can insulate ourselves from that US economy by exporting and creating partnerships with Europe, but we need to understand what they need. So we need to help ensure that our producers are using lower carbon. Inputs they’re putting in play technologies or adopting technologies that are going to increase their productivity and, frankly, overall global competitiveness in order to be successful in that market, or those new markets, those new European markets, so that kick in the pants that has happened, the ability to or the need to insulate our economy and mitigate against the trade tariffs that we are feeling from the US and Trump is forcing us the other piece of that is, although we’re a nation primarily of small medium enterprises, we do have a number of multinationals, but most of those multinationals are European or US parent and the European parents, because they have been forced to adopt technologies to increase their productivity, to lower their energy demand, to lower their overall carbon intensity, those parents are starting to force the industries here in Canada who are their subsidiaries or child companies, to adopt those same technologies, or at least take measures to reduce their own carbon footprints. So we’re kind of getting it from from both angles, but in in essence, it’s going to increase force Canadian companies to increase their productivity and support or result in global competitiveness.

Jay Whetter  41:25

So just a term. So you said SMEs, or SME, SMEs and ease so small and medium enterprises, and then were those multinational enterprises, mnes, okay, when you’re saying just shifting from selling to the US to selling elsewhere in the world, I was thinking, well, that’s not innovation. That’s just changing your markets. But then you talked about, if you want to get into the European market, which is a higher end markets, would, in theory, be a desirable market, it will require some innovations to meet with European standards, and I often feel like we’re averse to that. We’re thinking, this is what we grow. You can take it or leave it, and Europeans gonna they’re gonna leave it, but if we want that market, we kind of have to listen to what they’re asking for. And I guess with some pushback, there’s always negotiation. And I think, but our default in Canada, especially in agriculture, is that the US US is not going to buy it. Then we’re going to go sort of steadily down the line of people who are just take whatever you got, but they’re price sensitive. But if we want to go up the line, that’s where we’re going to have to innovate. And I say, Okay, well, this is, so, this is, this is interesting. So, so from a communications perspective, or, you know, how do we how would you inspire industries and even farmers to look at these sort of innovative or higher end markets rather than taking sort of the easy sell route? If I could say that, I

Meaghan Seagrave  43:00

think it goes back to productivity and competitiveness. You want to decrease farmers producers, whether they are forest or ag producers or fisheries and Marines, they want to reduce their overall costs, right? And those costs are going to be based on inputs. They’re going to be based on what it costs to harvest, what it costs to produce, process, ship, etc. So if we are looking at European economies that are forcing these producers to better understand their carbon inputs, their carbon footprints, their carbon intensity, they’re automatically going to in order to do that, they’re going to need to adopt and adapt technologies within their existing business that’s going to naturally increase their productivity, lower their costs, giving them an advantage over their neighbors, or giving them an advantage over another producer or processor. So that’s ultimately increasing their global competitiveness. It’s it’s a win, win, and it’s a matter of changing the the outlook, and frankly, even the culture within, within our resource based sectors, and hopefully within our line departments that are supporting research, innovation and commercialization within these sectors.

Toban Dyck  44:22

I’m curious about this. So is there, is there a parallel universe, somewhere where, in which Canada isn’t a reactionary economy, where we, where we, where we could have seen all of this and led in a way, and then, and then, in addition to that, does Canada have the component parts to do that?

Meaghan Seagrave  44:47

Canada really could easily take the lead, and maybe we will 30 years from now, or 50 years from now, and I, and I say that with a you know, little bit of. Tongue in cheek and trepidation at the same time, because we are the only ones that have all the components, all the parts we have, all the assets we have, the crops we have, the forests, we have, the water we have the oceans. We are not being impacted to the same respect by climate. I mean, we are, but we’re not dealing with the same hurdles that, you know, California, Texas or even Spain. I mean, two weeks where it was over 45 degrees, like people dying in their homes, right? We don’t have a population crisis. If anything, we actually need to increase our population to help increase the productivity that we’ve got in this country. So we have all of the pieces of the puzzle to grow a sustainable economy, and we’re the only ones. Europe does not. I mean, we’ve already got 85% of our grid that’s green, clean and renewable. So we’re the only ones in the world with that kind of an energy grid. We’re the only ones in the world who have excess land that can be cultivated. We’re the only ones in the world who do not even get close to harvesting on our allowable cut from a sustainable forestry perspective, like we’ve got more than 10% of the world’s sustainable forests, and we harvest less than 2% of them on a yearly basis. So we have the pieces of the puzzle. We just need the leadership, we need the understanding of what the opportunity looks like to be able to execute and do something about it. And frankly, if we don’t, I think what we’re going to see more of is inward investment from European and US entities coming into Canada, which which can be great from an economic development perspective, but that is not going to be Canadian IP. So it’s going to become, take export and and move on.

Jay Whetter  47:03

How do we fix that? We were smart enough. We’re just what is it, is government in the way, or is it our mentality or our approach in the way? What is the issue?

Meaghan Seagrave  47:16

Yeah, I think it’s a few things. I don’t I’m not gonna I don’t think government’s in the way. I think we just need the leadership to be able to understand where the gaps are, and then how to connect the dots. And we need a culture shift at the same time we are we’re sitting pretty in this country. We don’t have, we don’t have that urgency. I mean, how many of us can can take a Friday off on, you know, a summer, make a summer long weekend happen without any real consideration of, does it really matter? Does anybody care? I can tell you that, you know, from a government perspective, the as an organizer, organization that works a lot with government, I have a lot of respect for our civil service, but I know that when August hits, I will not be able to get a meeting with anybody. Doesn’t matter what level within a line department they happen to be, it is just constant out of office replies for the entire month. Nothing happens in August. You know, we might as well be dealing with with academic institutions where, once may hits, you’re not going to get a hold of anyone until, until late September, early October, like everything comes to a halt or a stand still. So we need the leadership, we need the culture shift. We need the vision, and we need to be able to tie the leadership to the vision, create a culture shift within our government entities, both provincial and federal, to see this real opportunity and to turn Canada into a leader.

Jay Whetter  48:57

You answer your question, but I have a leadership question, but you go first.

Toban Dyck  49:01

Toban, okay, okay, okay, I have a two part question, so that’s good giving me the mic for a while here. What just to tie this into extension, and kind of your role and your activities in that in that field, what has worked for you and what do you see being an effective approach? Extension related. And then the second part of that is, what can the three of us do in terms of an action item, taking away from this, what can the three of us do to help, help break down these silos, excellent.

Meaghan Seagrave  49:38

Those are challenging questions in terms of what the three of us can do, harp on the communication side of things. It blows my mind. How few folks really understand the assets that we have in this country, and not just ag and forestry and fisheries and marine that I keep kind of, you know, harm. Harping on. But we have stranded assets, and we have assets like ports. I mean, there’s 500 ports in this country, maybe only a dozen or 15 of them that are sort of, you know, nationally recognized ports, but another few 100 smaller ports that we can leverage with regards to moving feedstock, moving biomass, moving product, keeping our economy going communication to increase awareness of what those opportunities look like around economic development enablers and economic development organizations within our provincial and federal governments, because it, you know, the the conversations that I’ve had with federally, with finance and treasury, with folks within I said they understand where that knowledge exists, but they don’t access it. So only when, when there’s a need, when they need something explained, do they reach out to maybe the NRC or insert or or one of the other sort of science and technology based entities. But apart from that, you know finance and Treasury responsible for where all the money goes, who gets access to it, how it gets delivered, and then the economic development mandate falling within, I said, yet, if we go back to what the hell’s the foundation of our economy in this country, oil and gas, forestry, Agriculture, Fisheries and Marine, and that’s it. And those pieces of our economy don’t fall under the purview of, I said, and don’t fall under the purview of the regional development agencies across our country. So we’re we need to, we need to better connect, we need to better communicate. We need to open the eyes of folks within our government, and we need that leadership and the vision to be able to connect all

Jay Whetter  52:04

so it’s almost like, yeah, it’s almost like we’ve we’ve assumed that these primary industries don’t need our investment in innovation. We’re going to innovate somewhere else down the stream in manufacturing or whatever. And we’re kind of given up on the core of our economy, and in terms of innovation priority, I think that’s so fascinating. And so just to bring it back to agriculture. So how do we you said there’s no mandate for for innovation or economic development, no mandate for economic development, which I’ve brought up now twice within agriculture and agri food Canada. And then you mentioned leadership, and then you also spoke somewhat highly of the government. So I’m going to wrap those three things together. So how do we make agriculture and agri food Canada a leader within within agriculture, and maybe that’s changing the mandate to include economic development. But what, how do we get that agency to to be dragging agriculture forward.

Meaghan Seagrave  53:06

I am. I would really love to see them expand on their cluster models. So they’ve got agrici based clusters, which are really focused around R and D, and they’ve been running these for about 15 years, maybe 20, but definitely 15, and they’ve been, they’ve been successful at that early stage, identification and somewhat validation around some of these technologies. So coming out of academic institutions, maybe there’s an early adopter, but the technology isn’t completely validated, and it’s, definitely not at a commercial scale, but building upon that to commercialize and actually scale up, a further focus down there, down that pathway, would be grand. And frankly, there isn’t really anyone that does that. There’s an assumption that industry is going to take it after it’s been semi validated, and they’re going to put the investment in. They’re going to, first of all, they’re going to be able to identify it, they’re going to want to adopt it. They’re going to put the investment in to adopt it, and they’re going to take all the risk to do it. That doesn’t happen, that doesn’t happen within the culture in Canada. It certainly doesn’t happen within the business culture in Canada. So we need, we need funding, whether it’s AFC, whether it’s a mix of AFC and NRCan, or it’s it’s a new national type program, like a building Canada program that’s all about commercializing these technologies here in Canada and helping them scale, and helping them scale in Canada with early adopters and adopters in general, along these value chains. So we need manufacturers in Canada to adopt the IP and the technology that’s being created here in Canada, and if that means de risking it from a procurement perspective from government, then then we should. Be initiating those incentives. If it means putting ICTs in place, to de risk the business environment, to allow these technologies to grow and to allow those early adopters to invest in these technologies and take them on, then so be it. I mean, why it takes five years to develop a tax credit in this country is beyond me, and why we can’t have tax credits that are cross sectoral in nature, as opposed to we’re going to do clean tech, and it’s only going to be available for solar and wind. It’s like, well, wait a second. Clean Tech could involve, AG, it could involve forestry. It could involve fisheries. Oh, no, wind and solar only. And it’s like, Well, why would we not want to create a business environment within this country that allowed IP to succeed, Canadian IP to succeed, and incentivize the SMEs and the M and E’s within our backyard to actually adopt that technology and prove it here, so that it gains market traction, that that can then grow in global opportunities.

Jay Whetter  56:11

I love it, yeah. Me too, yeah. Megan, what are ICTs investment tax credits? Sorry, ITCs, ITCs, Okay, gotcha, okay, we have to wrap I feel like I tip of the iceberg. I know I want a part two of this someday, maybe season three. Megan, thank you so much. I love getting to meet you by zoom or whatever we’re doing here today. I love it, and you’ve got some great ideas for pushing Canada forward. Thank you. You’re welcome.

Toban Dyck  56:41

Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, yeah. Do you

Jay Whetter  56:50

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

Toban Dyck  57:02

to coast. When you advertise with us, your brand isn’t just another commercial break, it becomes part of our story. Ads on the extensionists are personal and trusted. Our listeners value what they hear on the podcast.

Jay Whetter  57:15

Whether you’re looking for a 62nd ad somewhere throughout the podcast or even an exclusive episode sponsorship. We have options that will work for you.

Toban Dyck  57:24

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

Jay Whetter  57:36

Toban, fantastic conversation. I love talking with me again. She has she’s got a fire in her, Oh, yeah, soft spoken, yeah.

Toban Dyck  57:44

But there’s some energy there that I think the country really needs. And just a wealth of information, yeah, like, just her perspective on how this all works, how all the pieces, like components, right? Like, she’s, she’s been interested in components her whole life, her whole career, and you can see it. And she what a resource to draw from that she has a picture of how these pieces all fit. Yeah, that is, that is, that’s quite something. What was your key takeaway? My key takeaway was how what she sits on, the well of information she sits on is one that I think very few people know about. And then the second one would be, I like when I asked her about what it would take for Canada to not be a reactionary economy anymore, she said, we have the component parts. We have the components to lead, and very few other countries do, but we have it, yeah. And I think no urgency, I think that yeah. So with these other elements, we could, yeah, that’s those are my

Jay Whetter  58:56

and then. But to your question, though, she did say communications.

Toban Dyck  58:59

She did. So when I, when I asked her, How, how can we change that? How can we become that? What steps should we take? And it was, it was an emphasis on communications, like communicating. And then she, she said, communicate our current assets, but also our stranded assets. Yeah, right, which was interesting. I’ve never heard that term phrase before, but, and then she went to ports, yeah, and talked about the hundreds of ports that very few people know about and that they are to talk about them as economic drivers,

Jay Whetter  59:32

yeah, opposed to, like, in my mind, every single Canadian needs a lesson in productivity and economic Development and a response, and then a response, it’s almost has to be part of our civic responsibility, right? Like, what are we doing to, if not contribute ourselves open the door to economic development and then. So my key takeaway is this, this agriculture and agri food Canada has no mandate for economic development. It has a mandate for research, but boy, and it comes back to the old agronomy. Agronomy is is, is agriculture plastic economics, right? And I think if we can put slot economics into almost every part of our society, including AG, Canada, like every research project needs to show, okay, what? How is this going to help make farmers more money, or help make processors more money, or reduce costs, etc, increase profit. And I think that that sort of economic development mandate, if it came from the top at AG Canada, would be so helpful. So my key takeaway, and I’m going to start making some phone calls, is, how do we get the mandate shifted agriculture and ag food candidates to think about economic development, and, if not, you know, coming up with the ideas themselves, and at least making it easier for the researchers to talk about it and for agriculture in general to be, to be thinking about that. That’s my takeaway. Yeah,

Toban Dyck  1:01:04

and I think that’s, I think that’s a really good one. I think, you know, we could, we could take a little bit of what she has said, or we draw from this, this interview, and create things in terms of, like, a really practical approach even to this podcast, like create materials based on this, and focus them at, yeah, at AFC, or at, at the at the people who need to hear these

Jay Whetter  1:01:27

things, right? You know, we’re gonna call them silo busters. And it’s been like, it’s gonna be like a rocket launcher that fires this thing into these silos and blows them up.

Toban Dyck  1:01:37

We could be dressed up like Mythbusters kind of. But silo busters.

Jay Whetter  1:01:42

Okay, well, so this is our next live presentation. Will be the Silo Buster Yes, we’ll come in uniform, that’s right. This has been the extensionists Podcast. I’m Jay wetter

Toban Dyck  1:01:53

and I’m Toban Dyck. Till next time.

Jay Whetter  1:02:00

This has been a burr forest group production. We

Toban Dyck  1:02:02

also want to thank the people working behind the scenes to make this podcast

Jay Whetter  1:02:06

happen. Abby wall is our producer and editor. Ashley Robinson is our coordinator and Michelle Holden is our designer. You