Episode 32:

Mohamad Yaghi

Transcript

Toban Dyck  00:03

This is the extensionist conversations with great thinkers in agriculture. I’m Toban Dyck and I’m Jay Wen.

Toban Dyck  00:14

Hey, Toban. Hey, Jay. How’s it going? Good, good, good, good, good. So we what did we do? What did we do? We had our first live taping at AG days in Brandon. Yeah, I liked that. I did too. I mean,

Jay Whetter  00:31

there were things that we could do better, probably, well, I think it was so ag days was having trouble all the way along with their audio. And I think it happened to us a bit and their weather, right? Abby, oh yeah, it’s freezing, so cool. Storm is 30 something and stormy. Yeah, I was at Arlene Dickinson the next day after we recorded our podcast. I forgot she was there, yeah. So they had headset mics on, and within the first 10 seconds, they’d taken them off and they’d gone to a handheld and then Scott perkin, who is, who is the host, he was asking the questions of Arlene, so they’re just sharing a mic. And then someone from the crowd asked a question. So Scott ran up to the to the into the crowd to give them their mic to ask the question, yeah, but Arlene had no mic, so then he had to go all trotting down all the way back down,

Toban Dyck  01:22

yeah, trying to cover. They quickly

Jay Whetter  01:25

jumped in with various other mics, but they were just thinking, Man, that was Yeah. Could have been done a little better. But I don’t want to be too critical, because I think the fact they can pull off ag days as well as they do is pretty amazing. And you show you need to trust your AV people to take care of your audio. But yeah, yeah for sure, yeah. So besides that, Dez was great, and she was like a pro, and I’ve probably learned some annunciation skills, or what is, what was the term that Merle Massey said to me, project.

Toban Dyck  02:04

What was the context? Well, she was,

Jay Whetter  02:08

she wanted to just she was in the audience for our live, yeah. Courtney, yeah, for sure. And she wanted to yell out to me to project my voice, really, yeah, because Dez can project, because she’s got that radio TV approach, yeah, and I guess I was probably mumbling like I am prone to do that’s funny. I don’t, I don’t, I would never say that about your voice. No, maybe I just wasn’t speaking loud enough into my mic. Or maybe I just didn’t have a good enough mic. Maybe she had a better mic. Maybe, maybe, maybe that’s true, yeah, because I did feel like I was projecting when I did my farmer panel, but also, but it was a handheld mic. Oh, yes. And you and I are used to like this, yes, where we’re kind of side by side talking to each other. We don’t realize we’ve got a room of 1000s of people listening to us.

Toban Dyck  03:00

So that’s the other thing about, about my takeaway from it. I mean, it was fun. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah. It was one of those things where it there was so many so the stormy day, so Abby, Abby and I drove in together, you know, not super awesome weather. There was a bit of, like, nerves, a bit of anxiety about Dez being able to make it right, yeah, cold and then, you know, on the heels of, like, a really busy conference season. So it was like, you know, egg days is sandwiched between, I don’t know where I was before egg days and where I was going after, and Edmonton and Saskatoon wherever, right? So it’s like a busy, busy time, yeah? And so I felt like, I felt like I wasn’t as present as I would have liked to have been at that taping, right? But I am quite like, I’m happy we did it, yeah, I’m certainly happy we have that first one kind of under our belt, and I think we’ll come into the second one with carrying that, that experience,

04:05

yeah, yeah, me too, yeah.

Jay Whetter  04:08

Today we’re talking to Mohammed Yagi, which will be a very interesting conversation. I met Mohammed. We had coffee in Toronto. How did you meet him, though? Well, so he was and we’ll get to this. I’m thinking probably he works for FCC now, but he was with RBC at that time, and was one of their thought leaders, so they had this branded thought leadership in agriculture, yeah. And I just, I was in Toronto, and I thought, hey, I want to talk to this guy. And so I just sent him a note and said, Any chance, you’re available for a coffee. And we met at this beautiful coffee shop in one of the Bay Street towers. Marble floor. This is the lobby. It was in the lobby, huge, 30 foot ceilings, nice, comfy chairs all over the place. I think we ended up actually having our coffee outside in February. Oh, wow. It was about 12 degrees. So it was. That’s amazing. Yeah, yeah, it was anyway. But so how did you know to talk to him? Like, what was that? Just because his name was on the some of these thought leadership information that they were sending around, yeah, yeah, that’s cool. That’s a really neat connection. Yeah, yeah, that’s so here we are now that he’s with FCC and I had camera. I don’t think I saw him, but I did send him an email and and thought we should have him on the podcast.

Toban Dyck  05:26

Fantastic. Looking

Toban Dyck  05:27

forward to it. Well, let’s get to it. Let’s do it. But before we start today’s interview, we want to thank our episode sponsor Sask oilseeds.

Jay Whetter  05:39

Sask oilseeds is currently recruiting farmer cooperators for the 2026 on farm research trials program.

Toban Dyck  05:45

In the program’s third year, Sask oilseeds on farm research trials reached new heights and expanded significantly, a testament to the program’s impactful contributions to the farming community.

Jay Whetter  05:56

The program started in 2023 with one protocol and 10 sites. Then in 2024 had four protocols and 23 sites, and grew again to seven protocols and 31 sites. In 2025

Toban Dyck  06:08

by investing in research applicable at the farm level, SAS oilseeds emphasizes its commitment to growing producer prosperity.

Jay Whetter  06:16

The goal of the program is to actively seek input from farmers and agronomists to shape future projects and cultivate a collaborative network between saskoil seeds, farmers, agronomists and research specialists.

Toban Dyck  06:27

Why participate in on farm research trials? Join a network of growers and agronomists who are interested in field scale research and sharing on farm results.

Jay Whetter  06:36

Those results are established with your equipment, under your farm conditions and management practices to help you make decisions on your farm. A research specialist or agronomist will help support you through every step of the research process and collect data throughout the season,

Toban Dyck  06:51

you’ll gain primary access to the results of other on farm field scale trials in Saskatchewan. Seize the opportunity visit sasgoilseedes.com to learn more about becoming a cooperator for the 2026 growing season.

Jay Whetter  07:07

Welcome to the extensionists. Our guest today is Mohammed Yagi. And Mohammed is the vice president of the Innovation Hub and ag expert at FCC. Welcome Mohammed. Thank you so much for having me. Did that? Did I nail that title?

Mohamad Yaghi  07:23

Yeah, I think you did. You were still, you were, like, a bit, like, cautious about innovation hub, but ag expert, you nailed it.

Toban Dyck  07:31

Actually, I do want to talk to you work for Jay egg.

Jay Whetter  07:35

Expert, oh, yeah, yeah. No, I got, I got, ag expert, it was the innovation

Toban Dyck  07:40

you know that you’re the only one who’s, I’ve never done an intro. You do all the intro? Yeah, maybe it’s

07:46

because I actually write, you got, you got to switch it up. Then,

Toban Dyck  07:49

I know, I know. But I just like, I know, I get nervous. I think I’d be nervous because I’ve never done it.

Jay Whetter  07:55

Oh, so next time you could try next and see, we’ll see how it goes.

Toban Dyck  07:58

Yeah, just like, fumbling over my words anyway.

Jay Whetter  08:03

Well, Mohammed, so you, you’ve had a long, kind of storied, interesting past, and so we want to start in Lebanon. Let’s get into it. But you have a family farm in Lebanon, which sounds really exciting. So can you just which you manage remotely? Apparently, yeah, right, which Toban is really keen on. But I want to just paint a picture of what this farm is and what it looks like. And I was just saying, we were talking Toban and I were talking before this, about the only news we ever hear from the Middle East is, is war and disaster, and so I think I’ve never been there, describe for me what the countryside looks like and why it’s special for you, yeah,

Toban Dyck  08:49

and what your farm is like there, yeah?

Mohamad Yaghi  08:52

No, no, I appreciate the question. So yeah, Lebanon is an amazing place. I love it, you know. Yes, great weather. You have a little bit of water. Geopolitically, nailed it in location wise, you know, the business, you know, like they say, location, location, location. We really nailed the location there. But the family farm has been with us for a few generations now, and it’s most of it, like when it comes to the vines on the farm, for instance, they were planted by my grandfather and his brother as well. And it’s a is, you know, I got to ask the question, you know, what makes agriculture different? And I think it’s just that it’s, you know, we can pass on in life, right? But in terms of the way, you know, just this lineage and transcends to different generations. There’s nothing like agriculture because the vines are still living. They still speak the story of my grandparents. So it’s it’s something of like, it’s a very close association to the farm. It’s something that draws me back constantly, even though I’m here in Canada. But when it comes to the countryside, Lebanon. It is a mix of beauty, but also chaos at the same time, depending on how you define, define it, but essentially it’s the land is so storied it would, you know, multiple civilizations having went through the region, my hometown of albeck, literally just translate into from, I believe, Phoenician, to city of the sun, based on the god ball, and essentially this, my hometown, has over 300 days of Sun per year, something I wish we have a little bit more of it here in Canada. But nonetheless, pickers can’t be choosers. I guess sometimes it has one of the, I would argue, it has one of the best preserved Roman ruins in the world. It’s an amazing site. Why the Romans picked that place to be a site of such huge monument, huge monuments, when it comes to, came to construction. It’s a massive, massive site. What is it? What does it look like? Yeah, so there’s a few temples. There’s temple of Bacchus, which is the god of wine, of course, as you already know, so one of the best preserved I think maybe that’s fundamentally the answer, right? There’s a few good things to grow in the region, olive scrapes and a little bit of hash on the side, but, but that’s what it’s mainly known for globally. But even though hash is illegal, of course, but you know, some people do on the side, but nonetheless. But yeah, so it’s so my hometown has these, like, massive Rome ruins. It’s a beautiful place. And when I say civilizations have gone through it, you have the Romans. You have the Phoenicians before them, of course. You have the early Islamic Caliphate, the Crusaders as well, pick your pick and pick your civilization. They most likely have gone on a highway there, even maybe picking Napoleon, I’m sure has gone through there at one point in time. Yeah, amazing. So it is a storied place with a lot of history, and so when it comes to the agriculture of the region, it is the quilt of Lebanon, essentially. So I my hometown, and the farm just outside of it is in the region called the Baka valley. It was basically given to Mount Lebanon. I guess there’s a whole story history behind it. After World War World War One, when the French had a mandate in the region. They split Syria and Lebanon between the two, and essentially, as a concession to the Mount Lebanon region, they wanted to give them an agricultural piece of land. So my region was carved out just for that agricultural purpose. You see, a lot of businesses today we have the I wouldn’t say that when I say the scars, it’s not in a derogatory way. It’s more of like the decision they made in the 1930s had a huge impact on them, because, let’s say, the biggest, one of the biggest wineries in Lebanon, the Chateau masar. Their headquarters is on the coast of Lebanon, because they thought that it would like the Bekaa Valley, where a lot of the grapes are grown. We’re going to be we’re going to belong to Syria. So essentially, they they have like, two headquarters, essentially just because of that decision that was made decades ago. But nonetheless, it’s a beautiful region steeped in history, too much history, sometimes complicated because of complicated because of a lot of different political institutions that have been established in the in the country. So Lebanon is a unique for his confessional governance style. So professional position, yeah. So every position in government is based on your religion. So the President has to be a Maronite Christian, Prime Minister, Sunni Muslim. And then you go down the list of different religions. So ultimately, in a parliament of 128 seats, they’re all divided by different sectarian groups, different Christian groups, like I know all about different Christian sectarian groups, just because of Lebanon, there’s way too many same thing for Muslims as well. So not to eliminate the Muslims for that equation, but there’s a lot of different confession sectarian groups, and that makes up the government in Lebanon. So much different to Canada. Of course, love that we have a sucker system here, but that’s a little bit about the country. And we have, I would argue, the best food in the world. You know, there was, there was one. So there was, like, an episode, I think of Chef’s Table, I think one of the first few episodes. And I really believe this one chef, and I forgot who it is. But he basically said, like, the best food is based was made under like, the roughest conditions, because you had to make do with what you had. So let’s say kimchi, for instance, was not a isn’t it really a traditional recipe, if I’m correct, it was maybe crafted, like after World War One during World War Two, just because that’s all they had, or something of the sort. I don’t know exact story. Yeah, same thing. Yeah. Crafted, perfected again. I don’t know if anything was invented in Lebanon, but we definitely perfected it. So that’s my that’s my hot take for the day. So I’ll leave it at that.

Toban Dyck  14:57

So what do you what do you grow in your farm? Ben, I. You said vines a few times, so I’m guessing, is it?

Mohamad Yaghi  15:02

Yeah, we grow olives, olives, and we grow grapes as well. Okay? And it’s fun because I have a satellite image over the farm. Like, I use that service just a spy on my dad. Sometimes it’s like, great brother in the sky. So it’s amazing because, like, I can even measure the humidity on the farm, just based on satellite imaging, for instance. So you can see if somebody messed up with irrigation a tiny bit like so this little spot of water starts emerging. So it’s, it’s, it’s, technology is amazing in that way, because a lot of the conversations that I’m able to have these days wouldn’t have happened because, like, because it wasn’t accessible at that time. But now I’m able to have a lot more sophistic Conversations. I’m able to see again, what’s being planted on the farm, how it’s growing. Different technology gives you access to different things as well. So in this, in this digital era that we’re in right now, there’s so much you can do if you’re a little bit creative and willing to wake up early in the morning as well.

Toban Dyck  16:08

So satellite, so satellite imagery that you’ve subscribed to, I’m guessing you’re getting real time like live feed from it

Mohamad Yaghi  16:20

every day, is a new is a new image? Yeah,

Toban Dyck  16:23

wow, wow. So is that? Do you do do that through ag expert? We’re jumping ahead here. But just, do you use ag experts?

Mohamad Yaghi  16:32

Geo lock, so I can’t use ag expert in Lebanon, okay, even though I would love to, yeah, but yeah, like, I’m not even allowed to use my phone in Lebanon if I traveled there, so, just because it’s a Crown Corporation. So there’s a lot of, like, restrictions, okay, when traveling abroad, but yeah, ag, ag is for it’s geo blocked in Lebanon, but I would be using it otherwise. It’s the best offer out there.

Toban Dyck  16:56

We’ll get to that. We’ll get to that. Yeah, sell stuff. Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Jay Whetter  17:03

So Toban, you might have more questions about remote farming. I’m not sure, but I just wanted to ask a question about the grapes. So you talked about that winery, Chateau Musar, was it? Yeah. And so do you sell your grapes to them, or do you have your own wine?

Mohamad Yaghi  17:20

We could sell grapes, like generally, to anybody as to distributors. So most of these wineries don’t they grow a lot of grapes for themselves, but you can sell directly to them or through to an individual who collect the grapes and then sell directly to them. They they oftentimes try to supplement what they have from other growers in the region. So one could, for instance, do that with the olives. You know, it’s really mainly for our again, olive oil is getting too expensive these days, so a lot of it this year is going for internal family use. But again, with the local Miller, they tend to, you know, take a part of that olive oil and then sell it. So again, different variety of sales models that they have in the region, but, but, yeah, I think it’s something that’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s something that still connects me to the land, something I love to pursue. So I think it’s a really nice way, even like being far away from Lebanon is a good way to, you know, talk to my dad every day, and it’s fun. It’s a fun family business. And in the future, we’ll, we’ll see if we make it into more of a boutique brand, because I’m seeing way too many olive oil brands these days, boutiques, and I’m getting jealous all the time. I’m just like, I could just do that. I could just slap

Toban Dyck  18:43

better. Yeah,

Mohamad Yaghi  18:44

I can do better. Yeah, like, I’ve seen, like, there was, there’s this one all world company that’s, like, worth billions of dollars now just because they put into ketchup bottle. It’s crazy. So I’m just, like, I could do that. So maybe next steps, we’ll see. Who knows? Toban, so now I’m going to ask questions, because I want to mix it up. Toban, what do you farm?

Toban Dyck  19:04

Oh, not grapes or dates or anything like that. I It’s wheat. So grapes and dates, grapes and dates, like it grain. So like wheat, wheat, barley, corn, for the first time this year. So I’m Southern Manitoba, okay? I did corn, okay, canola, soybeans. That’s kind of, that’s kind of, what we what we grow here, what got you into corn this year? Great question. So lots of corn in my area, so neighbors, you just can’t go two miles without without encountering a cornfield. So that is, was always of interest. It was never accessible to me, because the narrative was always you need so much infrastructure. You need you need, you know, different planter, different. You know, harvester. You need storage. You need to dry it. But I was hearing more and more that like people are either selling wet or or getting a custom dry. Food, you know, selling off the field. You can use contractors for for seeding and harvesting if you need to. So I figured, with all the people doing it in my area, certainly there’s a, there’s a solution to all these things, there’s, there’s answers to all these questions. So I started small. Did 100 and 120 acres last year, and that that worked out really well. I mean, fiscally. I mean, I contracted a lot of it out, and I sold kind of spot, sold it to a market that took it wet, so I won’t have made as much as I could have on it. A lot of it went to to the custom operators. But still, still was profitable, even with all that. Congratulations.

Mohamad Yaghi  20:44

That’s amazing. And it sounds like you fought against that. OEM, propaganda. Fantastic. You didn’t need a new planner. Yeah, you could

Toban Dyck  20:50

just do it. Just do it. It was, it was, it was hilarious on the farm, though, because, I mean, you can imagine my father was like, he was excited, but then he had all these questions for me to go, what are you gonna do about this? What are you gonna do about that? I’m like, that? I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t know. We’re going to figure this out. So yeah, and it just kind of it worked, but

Mohamad Yaghi  21:11

that’s what you did, was iterate and innovate. I love

Toban Dyck  21:16

it unintentionally, but I like that.

Jay Whetter  21:19

That’s great, mom, but you’ve had a few jobs, and we’re not gonna have time to get into all of them. But you sold, sold fertilizer in North Africa. You were a journalist in New York City, which Toban has a question about. And then you work for General Electric KPMG and RBC. We’re a collection of Russian dolls, yeah or Yeah. So they get bigger and bigger and bigger as you add a new job and you just get more and more impressive. So out of all those jobs, were there specific times or events that were particularly foundational for you, bringing you to where you are now, foundational.

Mohamad Yaghi  22:05

Boy, that’s a great question. I would say every role has had its unique look. I know this is gonna sound so general, but work with me here for a second. But like again, every every opportunity was unique, I would say in terms of just like hard, like the hardest growth imaginable. I think it would be when I had my own company, AG, tech startup called raker. And honest to God, there is such a romance to entrepreneur like entrepreneurism that I think sometimes is so conflated. And it really not that I agree with a lot of what Elon Musk is doing, but I do agree with them that entrepreneurship is really like chewing glass every day. It really is like it’s it’s not easy, it’s like it is. But, you know, all the like, everything I gained from that experience, it feels now like it’s like, imagine you go to a gym and you put on the weights, like you can crank up the weight to, like, something crazy, and then when you, like, take the weight down, it feels so much easier to lift those weights then I feel that’s how it is, especially with sales. For instance, it’s not like I have to justify my existence when I go into a room, let’s say about ag expert or root wall talk, which I’ll talk about more. It is such an easier sell, not only because I know how to position it better, but also like because there’s enough funds to do it. And it’s not like I have a ragtag team of coders and people trying to keep the business afloat. It’s like it’s just that much easier. So again, I think I’m really thankful for the perspective it’s given me, because especially with the when we talk about innovation, you especially in agriculture, it gives me such an appreciation, not only for what needs to be done and how to help entrepreneurs, and how can I help them as well, from my position, but I would say, even from, you know, the way I think about innovation now, even at a Crown Corporation, I honestly, again, this is going to be a tad bit dramatic. So work with me again, when it comes into my position of either with root or ag expert, it sometimes feels like we’re, we’re like NASA, in a way, because we can invest a lot of hard dollars and projects to again, it’s, it might not change the industry immediately, but it’s going to have a big enough impact that is going to move the needle a lot so that others can understand what the standard is for digital solutions for farmers. So from that perspective, again, from all that experience within the company I had, I would say that would be the most foundational experience, you know, for me. Me today, but again, every different part of my career has given me a lot of joy, a lot of learnings, a General Electric I really came to appreciate the importance of policy, not only federal policy, but in municipal policy, even from how high a factory chimney has to be in a specific municipality in Ontario, and like the process you have to go through in order to build a factory. And even, like the environmental laws that you appreciate, like, honestly, it gives you such a deep appreciation, even though folks will complain about, you know, policies and government, I think there’s such an importance for those barriers to come in, because it just again, we all want to build, build, build as fast as possible. But do we understand the consequences of building so fast sometimes and sometimes, just taking a step back and seeing just evaluating everything really gives you a good perspective of like, What can this be to not only be built fast, but how do we build sustainably, not only environmentally or financially, but even strategically for a company. So it’s just a good way to, like, take a step back and think, Okay, what is the huge, what is the impact we’re having here as well, and even from a sales perspective, selling fertilizers or a KPMG, where I was a consultant for data analytics solutions to different Porsche, 500 companies, they all came along with a huge benefit. But I would also say RBC was an amazing part of that journey, just because I was able to have conversations with people like Jay in the industry, really foundational, discuss this guy, yeah, this guy right here. So have those, like foundational discussions about the industry, where we’re going and, you know, at the time, there was a lot of room to think in a way where we could, like, push the boundaries, but like, also understand the constraints. So like, we may want to have all the money in the world, but like, we don’t. So what is a solution that’s practical and something we can do tomorrow? And sometimes every idea isn’t going to pass, and maybe even pass that bar. But sometimes I think I learned this as being a journalist, one of the best ways to get answers from people is to not ask the right question, but to ask the completely wrong question, because people are so much better at correcting you, as opposed to giving you just general thoughts. Always felt that like give and take, there was really important too. So that was a that was a car accident of an answer,

Jay Whetter  27:25

but you want to ask about the New York thing, but I

Toban Dyck  27:28

just want to ask about RBC

Jay Whetter  27:30

as well. Okay, and then, and raker was your company, yeah. What did you do?

Mohamad Yaghi  27:36

We had a hardware appliance, like a hardware, a piece of hardware that would go into a circuit breaker of a livestock farm to measure measure energy efficiencies. So basically, it would not only measure how much energy barn was using, but then take the energy signals using using machine learning, understand the diagnostics of each and every single piece of equipment as well based on those energy readings. So it was super useful for, let’s say, dairies, because 10 dairy cows use as much electricity as one household. So that was the sell to producers. Because we saw a lot of solutions on the market that were at the time focused on yields and like, we promise you will revolutionize your farm if you do X, but very few solutions focusing on, like, cost control, which I think is a very, again, convenient and thematic thing right now, but that was what we did at the time. But, yeah,

Toban Dyck  28:27

so before, before we let this go entirely. So you, you manage your farm in Lebanon remotely, or some elements of it remotely Correct? Yeah. So for sure, and what, I think what’s interesting about that is a I’ve thought about that a lot from my current farm, thinking about, you know, as you know, years go, go on, and what it might I get busy with my other work, what what that looks like, what is, what is, what is remote management of a farm look like in a kind of like, I think a lot of farms out there have a very traditional sense, especially in Western Canada. Of you live on the farm, you take it over from your families, and you live here, and you be here. And I think, I think there might be some interest in hearing of about different models of farming. So, yeah, if you could just talk about that a little bit, that’d be great.

Mohamad Yaghi  29:19

WhatsApp is an incredible event. You can communicate so fast. I think it’s, I think when it comes to, you know, again, farming remotely, it’s all about communication, right? So again, making sure you have those touch points, making sure that you have that cadence with everybody, making sure that over communication is the default, as opposed to, again, like something you ever work towards, because if you don’t have that over communication, it’s not going to work. So thankfully, my father and I, we over communicate far too often, even about things that we don’t have to communicate. But it’s still good, and I think it’s that level. It’s. You know, communication that is really helpful. Because even though I’m not going to be there every day again, if something emerges on the farm, I’m able to, you know, ask questions, and maybe it’s something he didn’t touch upon, and he’s not on the farm every day either, because he loves in the capitals, but he goes there like all the time anyway, but it’s an hour away, so it’s not a big deal. But even even with the folks on the farm, it’s all about communication, right? And with the digital tools we have, like, what can you operate remotely that is safe? Let’s say irrigation, for instance, you could have some mechanism and tools that can operate remotely. And even if you look at technology today, there’s so much access to those tools. Like, I’m pretty sure. I’m pretty sure John Deere has a self driving combine coming out pretty soon, if they haven’t already, like, it’s gonna come soon. So, like, the opportunity to farm remotely, not for the sake of it, but for you to be have the ability to focus on other strategic elements of the farm is coming to your doorstep. And I think the opportunity hasn’t like the opportunity hasn’t been bigger for us as well. It’s also about what you’re able to do. And I think in a funny way, somebody in Lebanon told me it’s, I’m going to take a long time to tell this story. So bear with me. So there was this gentleman who lives nearby, and he said, funny thing once he said, like, Lebanon is the future, and I’ve always stayed with me, not because Lebanon is going to be like Japan with technology. It’s just more about the beginning, as we discussed at the beginning, about the geopolitical instability of the region, whatever happens in the world, oftentimes, is felt first there, when it comes to climate change, when it comes to, let’s say, economic crises, when it comes to whatever is happening, if you think about it, like we’re facing right now, maybe in Canada, in certain ways, the brunt of it, let’s say even the brunt of social media, because there’s no regulation, there’s barely any government intervention or regulation, you get the brunt of it first. So when it comes to the way you operate a farm is going to be completely different, and you have to be very self dependent. And that’s where I see a lot of producers going, is the set self dependency route. On our farm, we haven’t had 24 hour electricity from the government ever. Maybe 1958 would be the last time, if I can make an assumption. So we’ve installed solar panels on the farm now, and that’s giving the farm more electricity than we’ve ever had before. So we’re becoming self sufficient. So when it comes to that remote operation, I do see that as a future for certain operations, just because you’re just going to have to be much that much more self sufficient. So let’s say power generation, especially for you know, in regards to the company I had, there are certain models that will require them to install their own generator on a farm so that they can operate outside of peak hours, you know, on their own generator. Because maybe the energy bill is going to be too high when I look at farms in Idaho, for instance, the farmers we used to work with, the smallest one we worked with, was around 12,000 head. That’s the smallest one. So their energy bill was in the on an annual basis, over $100,000 so it’s a huge amount of like cost that’s going into their operation. So how can you be more self sufficient to limit those costs? So that’s something we’re I’m seeing more of. So when we talk about remote managing your operations more remotely, you’re also going to have to be entrepreneurial as a producer as well to see what are other opportunities that I can bring cash to the farm as well, and that’s something I’m seeing across the board right now.

Toban Dyck  33:45

So, yeah, so sorry, Jay. Like, mean, New York. Like, so being

Toban Dyck  33:51

in New York, that’s interesting. My, my own, my only, my quick anecdote about New York was, so I come at farming from a journalism background too. I was first, I was first a journalist, journalist, and came back to the family farm in 2012

Speaker 1  34:05

but how was it being a journalist?

Toban Dyck  34:09

I mean, I had a great, I had a great, I had a great time. I mean, I worked, I worked at CBC, Manitoba for a while here, and then I worked at the National Post in Toronto for a bit, and then I Maclean’s Globe and Mail had, you know, had decent run and then, but I spent some time in New York for think I was there with corteva, actually, and and I was able to sit in in the morning editorial meeting at the New York Times. They, they were flirting with the idea of letting me write an egg column for them, and actually got to the point where I had my first column edited and vetted by them. It was and it was approved and everything. And then last minute, they just like they weren’t sure about investing in you. In, AG, you know, Canadian AG, content, and then they backed out. But that was less disappointing. It is, it is that would have been, that would have been a very fun thing, so I can appreciate that. But just to jump ahead, the RBC thing is interesting, so that RBC thought leadership, you know, project, or that, that thing that’s happening is, is been around now for a few years, some of my old co workers from the National Post, I think, I think are on that, are on that ship, or kind of came over with, with stack house, or

Toban Dyck  35:34

when he, when he came, who you do?

Toban Dyck  35:38

Okay, who would it? Who are they? Who are the main people there?

Mohamad Yaghi  35:43

I know from the National Post, was you doula on the national somebody is

Toban Dyck  35:47

an editor now there? Yeah, no, I know. I know, yeah, for sure, that name, but there was somebody else. Woman, Shannon. Sharon, anyway. Sorry, go on. I’ll push past. But so thought leadership, your role there? Maybe talk a little bit about that. And thought leadership is a phrase we hear about so often in ag, what does that mean?

Mohamad Yaghi  36:12

Yeah, oh boy. Talk about a loaded question. I love it. No, no, it’s good. It’s a good question. I would say, what is an insight, right? And I would define an insight a piece of information that is revelatory enough to change your perspective on an issue. I’m surprised I even came up with that definition as quickly as I did. But I would say like, it’s based on that like, and I think in again, there is a lot of thought leadership in the industry. And this is not the to be facetious to anybody, but it’s just to say that, yeah, there is a lot, and I think a lot of that research, you know, again, it comes around for different reasons. But are you reaching that bar of changing your perspective, anybody, a reader’s perspective, on the issue, so that they can think about the issue differently. That’s the bar i i try to aspire at when I was at RBC. I hope I reached it from time to time. But I think the the reports that we worked on were revelatory in the sense of, at the time, was working on the next, the next, the next food revolution, the next ag revolution, something of the sort. John’s gonna kill me now, but, but it was really a series of reports focusing on different aspects of the industry. So like, first off was technology. I wasn’t part of that one, but that was a really great report. The second one was focusing on finances, like financial ways to help farms with sustainability. What are some new financial instruments they continue on to labor, which was a really big success, and then afterwards, policy too. Ultimately, overall, I think the the thing is about you have to balance two things within, AG, thought leadership. It’s first off is what you’re proposing to, let’s say any relevant body who is being proposed to. Is it practical enough so that I could actually start doing this tomorrow, as opposed to saying we need X dollars in order to do this initiative. Because I think once you get start getting funding involved in terms of like, not, not in terms of planning, the scope of the of the solution, it’s more of like saying that we need X dollars to move the industry forward, I think you’ve lost the audience. But on the flip side, outside the industry, you’re also having to tailor your reports to folks who might not understand the day to day environment of agriculture in Canada. What are those challenges? So that’s how you have to it’s a balancing act, ultimately, but fundamentally, is, are you providing that revelatory piece of information to change someone’s way they approach an issue? That’s the way I would define thought leadership in the industry. Well, I

Jay Whetter  39:03

was just thinking like to zoom forward now as we progress with this conversation. No, I just because it ties together. So we often hear like Toban said, words like or phrases like, thought leadership. We hear innovation a lot, which you will talk about, and other word how and productivity and how Canadians aren’t, aren’t as productive as we need to be, but there’s rarely any solutions or actions. We just say we’re not good enough, but then walk away. But you said, you said practical things that people can start doing today. And I think maybe that’s where you are now. If we talk about, you know, the path of your career with ag expert. I mean, I feel like, and then you can, you can help define what ag expert is and does exactly for farmers. But I feel like. It’s, it’s actually where all of these words and phrases actually come to the point of being practical. What is that fair? Like that’s,

Mohamad Yaghi  40:11

I wish you’re with me every day. I could totally use that. I that’s totally fair. And when it comes to AG expert, again, it’s been with part of FCC for over 23 years, and now you can sell you can tell the autopilot is coming into play right now. So, AG, experts been part of FCC for 23 years. It provides a digital Software Management tool to over 27,000 farmers across the country on over 7 million acres of managed farmland. I like to equate the acreage to country size. So that is equivalent about roughly the size of Belgium. So it’s an incredible amount of information. We are the first software tool in Canada to to have ag data transparency. So essentially, our users own their data. We’re not doing anything with your data. You wouldn’t want us to do otherwise, but our mission is to provide is right now providing to two tools. First off is accounting. Is the only bespoke agricultural accounting platform in Canada. And then secondly, we have field, which is a cost of production tool, effectively, that helps you manage and understand your costs. Why do I love the reason I love this tool is we’ve seen that farmers this was a study we did with Statistics Canada earlier this year or last year, and we saw that farmers who use ag expert compared to those who don’t. Farmers who use ag expert have a productivity increase of 7% and when it comes to digital solutions, those are the sort of reports you will run to the market with, right? So I have been bragging about this fact for a few months now. It’s tattooed on my body somewhere, but it’s it’s a really exciting tool, because again, 23 years, we’re able to leverage a lot of information there to now help producers in Canada with more data analytics to help them benchmark. We’re scaling up different initiatives at the moment that are really exciting. And it goes back to what you were saying, Jay, it is practical at the end of the day. It’s something I can use tomorrow, and I don’t have to learn how to use I think, when it comes to innovation, one of the big landmines we fall into is, do I have to relearn a system to it or to use the tool, or do I have to change the way I operate in order to incorporate whatever I’m purchasing into My operations? And funny enough from my time at KPMG, because I’m reflecting right now, I’ve seen the same challenges at corporations when they’re implementing a enterprise software. The same thing on a farm. It doesn’t change. It’s the same thing where, if you try to replace an entire system that’s been built the ground up using a traditional piece of software, and you’re now introducing a new system, it’s not going to work, and it’s the same thing on the farm, because when you’re trying to introduce new software that is changing the way you fundamentally do your work, you’re asking people to not only pay but also have to learn something new. That’s going to take a certain amount of time. I think, as much as we talk about innovation, it’s also a design challenge as well. So the reason why AG, expert, in my opinion, has been successful is because we’ve been able to stay innovative, but we’ve designed it for the farm. It’s simple, solid, built for the farm. It’s It’s all connected together, where you can start using it tomorrow, but you don’t need to take five orientation classes to just to learn how to use a decision.

Toban Dyck  43:47

You I just you want to get in before I’m going to start talking.

Jay Whetter  43:51

Yeah. Well, all I was going to say was that, I mean this, it’s sort of sounding a bit like an ad for ag expert, which isn’t what we necessarily want to talk about, but I think the core, the core fundamentals, are sound. And this is something Muhammad that you talked about a couple of times, is that just the, it’s a again, how I would frame this is when I think of innovation. My brain often goes to, you know, some tool to use out in the field. You know, some some thing that will measure the weather or that does variable rate or section control on drills. But in some ways, we kind of need to go back to a real fundamental skill, which is bookkeeping or accounting or cost management, and just starting tracking those things and going back to a fundamental skill that maybe needs to get refreshed. I don’t know if you have a comment on that, but,

Mohamad Yaghi  44:48

yeah, I see this all the time, like, I think one of the biggest buzzwords right now, and the biggest cliches is artificial intelligence. You can slap AI onto anything and all of a sudden. That in people like it’s it seems so good money. You say these days will throw money at it. What fundamentally is artificial intelligence is it is advanced statistical pattern recognition. In order to have AI, you need to have the right data, and the right data starts from if you’re managing your costs effectively, because if you’re or even the way you account for your yields effectively, because if you’re not having proper documentation of your skills or, like, whatever you’re doing on the farm, and you’re not having that robust, let’s say even excel sheet, right, how are you supposed to monitor and save them? So and that really feeds into this whole AI discussion thing that I don’t know if we’re going to enter it a bit, but it’s one of the big challenges. Because when it comes to data quality, it’s a huge issue in ag, because again, I can tell you I’ve seen glyphosate spelled in a million different ways. It’s pretty amazing. Like you can say you can attempt a weird spelling glyphosate, I can tell you, I’ve seen it before, even with the you. So it’s, it’s fundamentally, starts from the data you collect, the way you manage your costs. It comes from those core skills, right of bookkeeping, making sure that your records are are right, because you can’t, you leverage any greater tool if you’re not managing those, those processes effectively right now.

Toban Dyck  46:25

So I got to, we can, we can get into the the root, root, and some of the other things right away is, but so ag expert, quick little aside, hopefully some humor in this I have been paying for ag expert now for five years, I would say, and congratulations, thank you. Yeah, you’re welcome. You’re welcome. I’m an especially great customer because I pay for it and I don’t even use it. So here’s the thing, so I pay ag expert every year, I all of a sudden get an invoice in my email. It’s like, Thank you for renewing your subscription to AG expert. It’s like, hundreds of dollars, right? I’m like, Oh shoot. I guess I should either figure out how to use this program or cancel my my subscription. So I’ve never canceled because I’m like, I’m gonna I’m gonna start. I’m gonna start. Okay, so my question to you is very practical. You mentioned this a couple times that you could start tomorrow. We’ve said it. Now I’ve heard it twice, at least in this conversation, so I want to start tomorrow. How do I start tomorrow? Is So part of the intimidation, for sure as a farmer is a the demand on time is huge, right? So I have a farm, and I have this per forest Group company, so it is like chewing glass every day. I like, I like, I like that one and B. So there’s a bit of an intimidation with like, I just feel like I’m going to open this program and it’s going to ask me a trillion questions about my operation that’s going to require me to go deep into my paperwork, and I’m going to just be like, You know what? I have a conference to go to tonight that goes into tomorrow. I don’t have time for this so and I’m going to put it off for another six months or another five years. How do I get started? Breathe?

Mohamad Yaghi  48:11

Okay, okay. Second, open your account. Okay. Third, you can actually take pictures of let’s start with this year. I don’t have to go into the past, okay, okay, take pictures of receipts. Just take pictures right now. What you can do then is upload those receipts into ag expert, and it will use technology that will parse the the wording on those receipts or whatever documents you have, and incorporate it automatically into ag expert. So it’s this thing called OCR. So basically, your data will be taken from the camera of your phone once you upload that picture, that data will be then taken and then automatically uploaded into ag expert, so you don’t have to manually type anything. So that would be one effective way of getting started in accounting. You don’t have to do anything. He will do it

Toban Dyck  49:07

for you. I have a bookkeeper, and I use QuickBooks Online. So, I mean, there is, there’s some integrations there, but

Speaker 2  49:13

yeah, oh no, QuickBooks, come on. I gotta change.

Toban Dyck  49:16

Could I run before his group through ag expert? Then too, it’s an egg company,

49:22

you know. Well, let’s try. Let’s try

Toban Dyck  49:24

anyways. Go on Jay, well,

Jay Whetter  49:25

I’m just gonna say, like, if Toban started tomorrow, if he bought, say, a load of fertilizer, a truckload of fertilizer to come into the yard. So every time he picks up an input, take a picture of it, and it goes, would it go right into So, rather than so folding up your receipt and putting it in your pocket and like, oh, right, my receipt, like, six months later, yeah, if you’re right there at the at the retailer, take a picture. Then take a picture. So then it’s done.

Toban Dyck  49:51

Yeah, smile. Take a picture. I like it anyway. Spelling taxes has never been easy. I’m gonna get started with egg expert.

50:02

Is Canadian innovation? Yeah.

Jay Whetter  50:05

So actually, I was gonna mention this. I don’t know whether we want to get to root and we want to get to a bit about communications. But just like if Mohammed, I know long answers are, are your thing because you’re a communicator, but is it possible to give me a 32nd history of ag expert, because it came from a farmer on a farm. Didn’t it like it’s its origins go way back, pre 30 seconds?

Toban Dyck  50:31

Yeah, it was give or take.

Mohamad Yaghi  50:35

30 give or take. It started in the late 80s, if I’m correct, was acquired by FCC in 2002 was originally called settler, and it was an accounting platform for farmers then, but FCC acquired it in 2002 and here we are today. Yeah, there we go.

Jay Whetter  50:54

I think we just have to give a plug for small town on farm innovation, even on the crop management side of things, okay, it’s a root. You want to go to root? Yeah, okay. What? What is root?

Mohamad Yaghi  51:06

Yeah, 30 seconds. So root is FCC. Introduction to large language models for Canadian agriculture. We help producers access the power of large language models through root today. The way we started this is because at FCC, we are really deliberate about talking to our customers as often as we can. In fact, every we talk to our customers every day. So one of the things we obtained through a lot of our interviews was, you know, a lot of folks had told us they were missing access to advisory services on the go. And one example that came emerge time and time again was extension centers, right, or extension service centers. Hence, the extension is right. So that’s one thing we saw missing from the industry. It’s again, we all know is changed because of different again, the cert, the way the service is delivered, the way things are financed, as well. But ultimately, they wanted that touch and go advisory service, a bit of like a speed dial for advisory services. So that’s what, how the initiative started, and large language models came into it really easily, because, again, it was instant. It gave them knowledge on the go, and they they could consult with it all. You know, it asks a series of questions, and they get the their answers on the go, essentially, is what they wanted to see. So root came emerged, and we started it, launched it in July, publicly, and we partnered with results from agriculture research, you know, to acquire some information. What we wanted to do was provide Canadians producers with tailored, curated AG, Canadian AG, trusted content, essentially, can we provide, through a large language model, credible and trusted, verifiable sources for them to use? And what we’ve seen lately is a lot of other jurisdictions internationally mimic that approach. So in China, for instance, they launched their open source large language model for agriculture. Maybe that was two weeks ago. We see Land O Lakes having their own large language model as well, and it’s a really effective tool. Because if you’re going to ask a producer to go through a crop guide that’s 800 pages long, again, challenging, yeah, but if you ask a large language model, can you find me that relevant piece of information? It can get you that instantly. So it’s a really great tool, because it’s able to synthesize information, give it, give it to people on the go, and then it’s also able to recognize images as well. So let’s say there’s a problem with an engine. If you take a picture of it and upload it to root, we have more than 85% confidence interval that it’s going to recognize it and diagnose the problem for you. So it’s really like a virtual Extension Service. So this is why I was really excited about this, no doubt. Well, how can we pair podcast a large language model? Yeah, how we can connect the dots here?

Jay Whetter  54:22

Well, this is in terms of a communication tool. Like, do you see these things being sort of the first point of contact now for a lot of companies and institutions, rather than, say, a website, I mean, that’s on a website, but I mean it’s, you’re just going right in there, you’re getting all of the websites data within one sort of question and answer interface. Like, it seems like a no brainer to me,

Mohamad Yaghi  54:50

yeah, I would say, like, we’re like, outside agriculture on the whole that is actually what’s driving a lot of site traffic these days. Days. So outside Google, like chat, GPT, for instance, is is driving a lot of that website traffic these days. So that’s really interesting to see that in Tiktok as well. Yeah, take it as your Yeah. When, when it comes to to what we’re doing with root, what’s interesting is that we’re not only taking scraping. We’re not technically scraping. I can’t say that my legal department will be upset with me. We are, we are we do obtain information from wherever we can legally, of course, but we’re also accessing sources from organizations like, let’s say ardar, for instance. They do a lot of research. Can we provide regionally focused information to our producers using our DARS research. Yes, it is these partnerships that’s going to help us grow, because the more partners we have across the country, the more regionally specific we can get and provide more tailored recommendations. I don’t suspect large language models are ever going to replace experts. It’s not what the tool was designed for. It will it will provide is a first line of knowledge, and then afterwards, can give farmers a sufficient base of information so that they can ask better questions. Yeah, that’s the way I see it going at the moment. So I don’t see it again, replacing anybody. I think it is actually going to really help enhance the experience for producers with their experts.

Toban Dyck  56:20

How is it available now? Like, how can I? Can I interact with it? And I,

Mohamad Yaghi  56:25

of course, okay, on your farm, go to sec.ca There we go. And under the resources tab, you’ll see root AI. Just click it and start asking any question you wanted to

Jay Whetter  56:36

ask it. I asked about farm profitability. Pretty generic question, I must admit. I mean, I didn’t get into the specifics of problem with my engine, which I love, that that’s a possibility, but it just actually created a it was a perfect five point, step by step on how to increase, increase farm profitability. Yeah, no, I was good. I asked that because it’s something with my other job with the canola Council of Canada that we’re, we’re obviously always interested in is on farm profitability and whole industry profitability. And I just thought I would start with something like that. And I was happy with my answer.

Toban Dyck  57:17

Well, I’m happy here. Does it integrate with AG, expert, does root? Does root

Mohamad Yaghi  57:24

coming soon? We’re exploring, I think right now we’re experimenting with root and seeing what’s the possibility of it. I think moving forward, we’re going to be adding agents to it, so essentially, it can function and can do things for producers that they don’t want to do, right? So more to come on that. But it’s exciting, because we really see this as an opportunity to eliminate a lot of like, paperwork for producers. So more to come on that maybe, if I’m invited back, I can tell you a bit more about what we’re doing once it’s launched, and maybe show it to you guys on the go. But yeah, so that’s it’s not integrated with ag expert just yet, but we’re looking into it at the moment, because, again, to your point, there’s a clear opportunity there for sure. Yeah, yeah. So you,

Jay Whetter  58:13

you said that root is not going to be necessarily replacing kind of face to face, but face to face with everybody is not practical. But this is, this is a broader question I just want to know. With all your experience in communications, what are the what are the best ways to to get a point across to people?

Mohamad Yaghi  58:33

I am to getting a point across. I think it’s Can you like, Can you, can you tell me more about, yeah, well,

Jay Whetter  58:43

that was probably too vague. But, you know, in extension, we have all of this ideas and expertise. I’m not saying the extension is, necessarily, has, has all the expertise. But in the world of extension, the point of it is to impart wisdom, but, but, but there also has to be that that give and take. You don’t want to just be spouting advice, because nobody wants to get unsolicited advice. So do you wait for people to come to you? If you’re a company trying to get a get some well, let’s just say with, with, with ag expert, or with root like, how do you get people to engage or use these tools in ways that doesn’t come across as necessarily an advertisement?

Mohamad Yaghi  59:28

Yeah, no, it’s a great question. It’s the ever I think it’s the constant question we have to ask ourselves within, you know, when it comes to software. So it’s definitely not something easy to solve. But the way we’ve approached it is really looking at it from a design angle. When you’re creating the software itself, how easy is it to use from the get go, like again, like you can have the best data scientist, and I learned this at KPMG, you have the best data scientists in the world. But sometimes the way. They communicate the solution, it just goes over your head. So you might have something really brilliant there, but you just don’t know how to use it, because it just isn’t clear. So I think, and I’m not going to harp on anybody else’s innovation here, but there are several models out there right now that were really intended to help producers understand, let’s say, maybe, their carbon footprint, but it was really long and lengthy to use. So when it’s the experience of it, it’s like, how fast? Like, when can I use it, right? So, like, can you use ag expert tomorrow? Like, technically, yes, you can. Will you have to learn a few things? Like, for sure, like, anything else, right? But can you make the experience accessible enough so that I have all the tools immediately to start understanding the implication of the different advice I’m getting, for sure. So it’s one of those things where you have to balance it, where it’s like, when it comes to the advice that we provide, like, short, succinct, based on credible, trusted data sources of Canadian AG, that’s where we start with. And if producers want to learn more, they can ask more and dive deeper into those questions. For me, like our measure of success is how human does the experience feel? And we’ve had a few folks feel that like they’re talking to an actual person on the go, which was super interesting, and I was a good sign of success, but we also want to balance it with like how much time you spend on it, because we want people to interact with the tool more. So we’re happy to see that on average, farmers interact with group for over 14 minutes and 30 seconds, which is really good, but we’re going to continue and try to improve that experience for producers out there.

Toban Dyck  1:01:40

Yeah, yeah, that’s really interesting. Yeah,

Jay Whetter  1:01:46

you know, I love talking about food. And you, you mentioned that Lebanon has the best food in the world, and then we quickly hustled on to the next part of the conversation. And I think, I think I need to go back to that. Okay, and what, what should I be eating if I want to try the real Lebanese experience?

Mohamad Yaghi  1:02:07

Real Lebanese experience. So my favorite salad is to fully. Is parsley thinly, cut up with burgle, red onions, tomatoes with lemon dressing, salt, olive oil, really good. Olive oil and

Jay Whetter  1:02:23

pepper as well. Is there, is there couscous or anything in that? Or is it just straight this burgle?

Mohamad Yaghi  1:02:27

Oh, yeah. So Virgo is like cracked wheat. Okay, so I think Manitoba could be a leading producer burgle if they if they wanted to, but, but I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but I think it is like couscous, maybe in a way, it’s just like much smaller, so it’s like, it’s not like an actual dough ball, but it is like much smaller, cracked wheat, essentially that you boil and you add to sour. So yeah, but have that hummus as well. Yeah, best thing in the world, along with a few cubed meats, so like chicken or like beef, and you’re ready to rock and roll again. It’s really hard to find a good to find a good place, Lebanese place in Toronto, because I feel they overcompensate for some reason. So like, let’s say they’ll give you, like, a mega sandwich, and you’re just like, I don’t need everything in there. Just give me, like, simple. Simple is best when it comes to Lebanese. So if you’re if the person who’s managing the restaurant gives you like a chicken sandwich, like a two sandwich, or even a shawarma sandwich, just all you need is, like the the protein, the sauce, which with chicken, is garlic sauce, but it has to be a specific type of garlic sauce. Again, I can take days explaining this to you both. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna pace myself here. But essentially, it can’t be creamy. It has to be like, somewhat solid in a way. So there’s like, a balance to the sauce itself that’s important. And then it can’t be like an oversized sandwich, because then you lose the whole effect of it, because you’re supposed to focus on the two, like a few ingredients and flavors. So, and it’s supposed to, like, connect together, because mazes, which is basically Arabic for, like, a spread, is super important in any Lebanese tradition, so, or, like, in any Lebanese dining experience. So if you don’t have the maize, like, you’re not having the full experience. Interesting.

Jay Whetter  1:04:19

I’ve seen that term before, yeah, okay, amazing.

Toban Dyck  1:04:23

I was a journalist in Lac La Bish, Alberta for a stint, and my land, my landlord, was, or is, or was, Lebanese. And so

1:04:34

we’re everywhere. We’re like verbal, yeah,

Toban Dyck  1:04:37

no, no,

Toban Dyck  1:04:39

no, but he gave me, he gave me a hookah, he gave me a Lebanese Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. No, no, I still have it somewhere in the house. Yeah, still in the box. No, I used it. I haven’t used it in years, but I Yeah, for sure, I’ve never tried who that’s the nicest landlord I’ve ever heard of that was very sweet. Yeah, yeah. He’s like, big poker nights. At his, at his, at his, at his house. And every once in a while I’d kind of join in, and then I expressed, well, that’s the interest in the hookah. Then he, I think it’s, I think it’s from Lebanon, like, I think he went there and brought a whole bunch, yeah,

Jay Whetter  1:05:13

and did the landlord also cook for you? No, sadly no.

Mohamad Yaghi  1:05:17

Sadly no. I like, I’ve never heard of a landlord giving a tenant anything, because I live in Toronto, so, like, that’s it of every experience I’ve heard so but that’s, that’s a really nice experience. I’m happy for you, and I’m glad that he

Toban Dyck  1:05:33

represented, okay, I know we are way over time. But quick anecdote, Toronto. So I lived on Palmerston Avenue between college in Dundas for for a couple of years, and my my landlord. So it’s little Portugal. My landlords Portuguese, a little elderly Portuguese couple, every Friday would make my wife and I homemade pizza and give it. Give us a bottle of homemade wine

Speaker 1  1:05:58

that’s so wait homemade in Toronto, homemade. Oh, wow, yeah, you are brave, sir.

Toban Dyck  1:06:04

It was like, it was, it was okay, right? It was

1:06:08

somewhere, someone in Health Canada, right now woke up

Toban Dyck  1:06:13

unlabeled bottle coming up the stairs with this great pizza. But they were the sweetest. They were the sweetest. Anyway, that’s amazing. Swedish. Would you say Swedish? The Swedish, the sweetest. Anyway.

Jay Whetter  1:06:29

Mohammed, thank you so much. That was a lot of fun. Thank you conversation. Yeah, thanks. Thanks so much. Hey.

Jay Whetter  1:06:41

There listeners, if you’re enjoying the conversations here on the extensionist, you will probably love to get our newsletter.

Toban Dyck  1:06:47

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 stories. Why are you excited? Differently, 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  1:07:13

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

Toban Dyck  1:07:18

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.com and follow the prompts to sign up for the newsletter. I think it’ll be, I think it’ll be great.

Jay Whetter  1:07:47

Well, that was a great conversation.

Toban Dyck  1:07:48

It was, it was, we could have gone on,

Jay Whetter  1:07:50

I know, like with everybody, like a couple hours. Yeah, it wasn’t enough time to dig deep on a lot of that stuff. But so what you what’s your take home with regard to AG expert, you were very honest there. I appreciated that,

Toban Dyck  1:08:03

you know, the more, the more candid we can be, the more candor we exhibit or express in these podcasts, the better they’ll be. You know, lay it all out there, you know, yeah, I think it’s encouraging. It’s inspiring. I should, I should just get, get, get going on it. It is a, it is a tool that I hear is quite, is quite useful. And I’m really curious about the root AI, the AI thing.

Jay Whetter  1:08:30

But I feel like sometimes with these, all these tools and innovations, is that one, once you identified where they meet a need, then you’re motivated. But if, right now it’s not fitting a specific need for you, I don’t think, I don’t think the your response should be, I should do that.

Toban Dyck  1:08:49

So everything, like, everything requires management, right? Like, and I don’t think that’s a fairly profound thing to say. So you, you you onboard a new tool, you bring in even, like, even these AI things, like, even, you know, we have chat, GPT, we have, like, a trillion options. And every day there’s a new thing. These things take, take something from us, right? Yeah, you know, it’s a block of time, it’s a little bit, like, it’s a little bit of space in our lives that get chewed up by these new platforms. And you’re like, yeah, they’re exciting. There’s a novelty when you, when you go to them for the first time, but to actually develop a space for them, it’s a complete, something completely different. Yeah, you know. And it’s a, I think, of egg expert, that’s great, and I know it’s a good tool, but yeah, that that’s going to take a chunk of my time. Yeah, and there’s, and

Jay Whetter  1:09:41

you’ve already got a bookkeeper and a platform, and we use

Toban Dyck  1:09:45

books and yeah, but I don’t doubt, I have no doubt, that it’ll offer me something that those things can’t, yeah, and will actually enhance maybe both of those things.

Jay Whetter  1:09:55

And I think, mean, in agriculture and in all. Businesses that time spent bookkeeping, managing costs, their return on investment for that time is often quite high, even though it doesn’t sound like something you want to be spending time on, but I would agree with you, but yeah, but if you don’t want to do it yourself, hire, hire someone to do it, I just think there’s, there’s a lot of space there for for enhanced profitability. That’s my hunch. Oh, I would agree with you 100%

Toban Dyck  1:10:27

I think. But I think it’s an interesting topic, though, this whole like things taking space in farmers brains, or, yeah, all of our brains in terms of innovation as well, right? So innovation is one of those terms that’s pretty exciting, because it’s like, you know, it’s, you know, whatever it means to you. It’s new. It’s you know, kind of tech. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, future looking. Yeah, these things take take space. They take space. And there are already lots of things that take space in our lives, right?

Jay Whetter  1:10:56

And, and what I really want to make space for is some of that tabooli and falafel or hummus and those cubed meats with that garlic sauce,

Toban Dyck  1:11:07

I did sound really good as he was describing it. What are your takeaways? Is that? Is that?

Jay Whetter  1:11:13

Well, I I wrote down the word over communication with two check marks beside it. And I think he made the point about the WhatsApp over endorse the word anyway. I’m just thinking, if the choice is under communication, over communication, I guess we should choose over communication every time. I guess so it’s probably better to say things twice and not at all. That’s just my so that would be my takeaway, is that if you feel like something isn’t getting through, then say it again without frustration or judgment, if that’s possible, yeah, yeah.

Toban Dyck  1:11:47

I would agree. I would agree like they Yes, once again. Thank you to our episode sponsor Sask oil seeds. Please make sure to sign up for their march 13 webinar where they’ll share results from Sask oil seeds 2025 on farm research trials

Jay Whetter  1:12:04

and information about how to take part in the 2026 trials. Visit sasgoillese.com to sign up. I think we can move on to the next episode. I think we this has been the extensionist. I’m Jay wetter and I’m Toban Dyck, till next time, this has been a burr forest group production,

Toban Dyck  1:12:27

we also want to thank the people working behind the scenes to make this podcast happen. Abby wall is our producer and editor. Ashley Robinson is our coordinator, and Michelle Holden is our designer. You