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Fewer listings than last year. Bigger packages. The highest dollar value of farmland listed for sale in ten years. In April, Tim Hammond told the room the market was splitting, with good land still climbing and average land moving sideways. Six months later he is back with a different word for what he sees: not a weakening market so much as a maturing one, with supply and demand closer to balance than they have been in years. Tim, of Hammond Realty, has been in farmland for thirty years. In this live session with Dan Aberhart he takes the questions on people’s minds: what affordability does to the next decision, why access to capital came out on top when the room was polled, and how a transfer of around $50 billion in farmland, mostly inside families, actually gets done. What’s Inside• Why Tim calls this market maturing and not weakening, and what that looks like in practice: sideways, a little up, a little down• How listings can fall in number and still hit a ten-year high in dollar value, and why a September to August crop year is the fairer way to count• Why he takes technical analysis of land values seriously if it is read over a hundred years, and what a 20 percent pullback would mean for lenders in his view (he is not predicting one)• Land as an input or as an investment: how a producer buying to produce thinks differently from a buyer chasing an asset• Why a 5,000 acre package was easier to sell than a 500 acre one three years ago, and why that has reversed• What the room said in a live poll: more people looking to buy or transfer than to sell, and financing as the biggest obstacle• Why a succession plan is one thing and carrying it out is another, and the quarterback role an advisor can play• The Hammond Huddle: one meeting with the accountant, lawyer, lender, wealth advisor and insurance advisor, the dangers, opportunities and strengths exercise, and the risks no one had named, from digital passwords to an unfinished to-do list• When to list (off the combine), why auctions suit only some packages, and why pasture demand is risingDan opens on the numbers: fewer listings, bigger farm packages, and a ten-year high in the dollar value of farmland listed, close to double with the Monette Farms sale included. Tim explains how he counted by crop year and why this looks like a maturing market. He covers affordability, the technical analysis work he and Trent did on land values, and the difference between buying land as an input and as an asset. The room is polled twice: what people are trying to do (buy, sell, transfer) and what stands in the way. Financing comes out on top. Tim says that for families the hard part is carrying a plan out, and he describes the Hammond Huddle he held in September for his own family and advisors, with his kids in the room. The session closes with audience questions on irrigated and pasture land, which regions are active, when to list, and auctions. Key Topics• Maturing versus weakening markets• Affordability and access to capital• Land as an input versus an investment• Family transfer and the role of advisors• Timing a listing and choosing how to sell Resources Mentioned• Trent Klarenbach’s technical analysis of farmland values and his newsletter (klarenbach.ca)• Strategic Coach: the dangers, opportunities and strengths exercise, and the three-years-from-now question• Farm Credit Canada’s farm equity analysis, cited by DanConnect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

Five invoices a day. That is what a CFO friend of Dan’s says a farm can see in a busy season, and each one has to be checked, categorized and matched to a receipt. Most people in agriculture have nobody to hand that to, which leads to the question Dan hears most: what can I take off my plate first? This live session starts there and then follows the room. Dan sets out to show one job and ends up building three things in front of the audience, answering a hard question about security, and being candid about what is still a demo. He is not a machine learning expert and says so. What he does offer is a working method. What’s Inside• Why the first step is context, not a tool, and why Dan says dictating to the machine beats typing to it• A grain basis tracker for a terminal that keeps its prices behind a password: ask the company for a supported connection first, then look at what browser and computer control can do• Why the basis numbers in the live demo were made up, and what a verified source for one specific terminal still has to prove• A soil test tracker built live from a few questions: matching lab shipment receipts to returned reports, then checking what the grower portal shows• A morning dashboard changed by voice while the room watched: weather, email summary, market news, futures report• Where to start with agents: one agent that does one job, then a small group, named and organized like staff• The privacy question, answered without a sales pitch: what goes to the cloud, what can stay local, and why computer control is the feature to be most careful with• The tire torque reminder: an assistant that read an invoice email and flagged a safety item nobody asked it to watch forDan opens with a problem every farm office knows: invoices, receipts and the people chasing them in a busy season. He says the real question people bring him is what to take off their plate first. He tells how he rebuilt his own business with a team of AI agents. He also tells how an assistant read a tire shop’s invoice email and reminded him to get his wheel nuts re-torqued, something he had not asked it to watch for. Dan had planned to demonstrate one job, an invoice dashboard, but the audience questions take the session elsewhere. One participant wants to track grain basis over time from a grain company’s login-protected site. Dan explains the options in order: ask the company whether a supported connection exists, then use browser or computer control with a login. He also sends his voice agent out to research verified sources. It finds basis history for one regional elevator on a commercial data service. It cannot confirm coverage of the participant’s exact terminal or the licensing. The dashboard Dan builds for the demo uses fictional numbers, and the participant points that out. A second participant wants to reconcile soil test shipment receipts with returned lab reports and check that a grower portal was updated. Dan has his voice agent interview her for the key facts: the matching identifier, the portal and the volume. He then builds a soil test tracker demo with fictional data. The demo screen warns that a field ID is a clue and not a unique key, and that a received report does not prove the portal was updated. The session closes on a direct question about security. Dan answers as a user, not an expert. Most people, including his cohort, use cloud models. Computer control is one of the more dangerous features. Sensitive intellectual property belongs in local AI. Everyone should do their own research. He then describes his upcoming AI training cohort and answers questions about format. Key Topics• Starting with one small job and the context you give the machine, not with a tool• Dictation as the fastest way to give AI context• Getting at data behind a login: supported connections first, computer control second• Matching lab shipment receipts to returned soil test reports, and why a received report does not prove the portal was updated• Data security and local AI, from a user’s point of view Resources Mentioned• Claude Code, including its Chrome extension and computer use feature• OpenAI Codex, which Dan prefers for voice• Wispr Flow, for dictation (spelled “Whisper Flow” in the captions)• A commercial market data service and a grain company’s basis page• Connections Dan names: Asana, Canva, Descript, DocuSign, Gmail, Google Drive, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Notion, Zoom, QuickBooksConnect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

Working hard is how most farm successors earn their place. It is not the same as being prepared to lead. A successor can run the sprayer, raise the crop and know the ground, and still be missing the decision-making, the numbers and the family conversations that the founder has carried without ever naming them. Patti Durand, family business advisor and author of The Future Leader, and Chris Corbett, her partner at Brightrack, join Dan Aberhart for a live briefing built on three questions: How well do you know yourself? How well do you know your farm business? How well do you know your farm family? They explain why the successor's job is to prepare to lead and the founder's job is to prepare to leave, why "my parents have a plan" is an assumption worth checking, and what to do when a conversation gets hot. What's Inside • Why being operationally strong is not the same as being ready to lead, and which decision-making skills are usually missing • Why the founder's job is to prepare to leave, and why that is harder than it sounds • The assumption that parents have a plan they will reveal when the time comes, and the case for saying plainly that you don't have one yet • Why the family's general accountant or lawyer may not be the right specialist for succession, using a family doctor and a hip replacement as the comparison • How to notice when you are triggered, why a time-out of at least twenty minutes helps, and the safe word one family agreed on • Four prompts that open a hard conversation: help me understand, say more, tell me more, I'm curious • How to tell whether you have a transition question or a business sustainability question • Why you don't have to love the numbers, but you do need to read the dashboard • How to start family meetings: a meeting about meetings, a short agenda and a shared picture of the outcome you wantKey Topics • Successor preparation and founder letting go • Assumptions about a plan that may not exist • Choosing the right specialist advisor for succession • Self-awareness, time-outs and repairing a hard conversation • Reading your farm's financial dashboard • Starting family meetings and agreeing on the outcome Resources Mentioned • The Future Leader, by Patti Durand • A successor assessment tool from Farm Credit Canada, mentioned by PattiConnect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

Your banker calls it coffee. In Craig Macfie's experience, it is an interview. They are reading your numbers, and they are reading how you manage. Harvest ends, Christmas comes, and twelve months of bookkeeping land on the accountant's desk with everyone else's. Reports can arrive in April, just as the field work starts again. Next year's decisions are already underway while the picture of last year is still missing. Dan Aberhart sits down with Craig, a CPA, P.Ag. and the founder of Spring CFO, who works alongside farm owners as their fractional CFO. A live poll of the room found only about a third had grain inventory and working capital numbers that were current and checked. Craig explains why the numbers are always an estimate, and what it takes to build the finance side of an operation on a solid base.   What's Inside • Why a lender's "coffee" is really an interview, and what they read across the table • Why grain inventory is always an estimate, and why the adjustment more often hurts next year's profitability than helps • The building blocks of farm finance: strategy and risk first, then transactions, bookkeeping, reporting, forecasting and the bank • How to get bookkeeping current when decisions are being made on information months old • Cash flow lending versus asset-based lending, and the production reconciliation inside AgriStability • How the Entrepreneurial Operating System gives a farm a simple structure for strategy, a scorecard and meetingsResources Mentioned • Traction (the book behind the Entrepreneurial Operating System) • Good to Great, by Jim Collins   Connect • springcfo.com Connect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag.  Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

A grain farm carrying roughly $500 of crop per acre on 5,000 acres is carrying about two and a half million dollars of exposure to grain prices. It doesn't need an open trading account to be in the market. Ryan Bonnett started as a 21-year-old grain merchant and later began trading his own account. He won early, then lost ten or twelve trades in a row because, as he puts it, he was trading on feel and had no system. He joins Dan to explain why almost nobody is taught how to use hedging tools, what changes when you have rules for getting in and a point where you know you're wrong, and how a farm can think about protecting the bottom end of its price. Live questions from the audience cover cross-hedging, technical analysis and how much time to give the markets each week. What's Inside Why most farmers never learn the tools their grain buyers use every dayThe question that exposes whether you have a system for selling or only a feelingWhat "bullish" and "bearish" mean once you have to say how far and whyWhy call and put options work like insurance on a farm, and what makes them expensive or cheapWhat to do about crops with no futures marketWhy even a competent trader needs someone who will disagree with themConnect with Growing the FutureWebsite: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

The hardest thing to fix on a farm doesn't have a part number. It's whatever went wrong between people, and unlike a tractor, you can't just order the replacement part. Dan built this session around an experiment: using the same diagnostic logic a farm already trusts, soil test, tissue test, soil map, applied to people instead of fields. He walks through his own Kolbe, CliftonStrengths, and Enneagram results live, then brings on Robert Woolf to tell a real story: when Dan and Robert negotiated Robert's return for Cohort 3, they each let an AI interview them for hours, then let the two AI agents work out 90 percent of the deal before either of them read a final draft. Stefano Zanotto, early in his own cohort, joins to talk about what the same diagnostics surfaced for him. What's Inside Why Dan treats three personality assessments like a soil test, a tissue test, and a soil map, and what happens when all three point the same directionHow a multi-hour AI interview replaced a negotiation neither party wanted to have in personWhat actually went wrong when Dan tried to run things the way he's wired, instead of how the work needed to be doneWhy a team's energy breaks down into five types, initiating, investigating, organizing, executing, finishing, and what happens when a team is short on oneWhat a farm succession handover looks like when everyone's real motivations are on the table before the hard conversation startsConnect with Growing the FutureWebsite: growingthefuture.caYouTube: Growing the FutureInstagram: @growingthefuturepodcastLinkedIn: Growing the FutureSubscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

Robert Woolf is 67. He is not a programmer. In season he is scouting fields fourteen to sixteen hours a day, and he used to get home and forget half of what he'd found before he could write it up. His grandson brought up AI at a rodeo. Robert's first thought was that he was too close to retirement to bother learning it. He didn't retire. He built thirteen AI agents instead, one of which checks the other twelve, and this conversation is him walking through exactly how. What's Inside Growing up on the family farm, twelve years at a John Deere dealership, and how sales and shop work shaped the way he thinks about a client relationshipThe precision ag coaching network that taught him more about why farming works than farming itself did, and the culture of open collaboration he says he has never found anywhere elseTwelve years of independent coaching, more than a hundred irrigation pivots under his management, and a body that finally told him to slow downWhy his own grandchildren were raised to think AI would ruin the world, and what changed their mindsA full walkthrough of his agent hierarchy: sixteen scattered projects reorganized into a single reporting structure, one integrator directing the restWhat a client question that used to take hours to verify now takes minutes to answer, and whyHis stated reason for doing any of this at 67: sixty years and more than sixty harvests of accumulated judgment that does not have to end with himWhy he will not touch a free AI tool, and what he tells anyone thinking about walking away from this entirelyRelated Episodes GYFOS Cohort 2 Session 8, where this same agent structure gets built live in front of the roomConnect with Robert WoolfAvailable through the Growing Your Future Operating System cohortConnect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

A farm and its neighbour, same region, same growing conditions, can sit $187 an acre apart in what actually gets made. That gap decides what gets paid down, what gets replaced, and eventually what gets passed on. This is the third session in MNP's Know Your Numbers series. The first two took the conversation from the books to the whole-farm benchmark. This one goes past the fence line and into the field. What's Inside What a profit map actually is: gross margin minus labour, power and machinery, deliberately stripped of capital structure so it is not just a proxy for farm sizeThe Soil Intellect Map, MNP's own layering of electrical conductivity and topography, and what it is built to findWhy the spread in crop input spending between top producers and average ones turned out small, and why the real gap sits somewhere else entirelyWhat gross margin by seeding date actually shows, and why canola punishes a late start harder than wheat doesA live guess from the room on what share of farms know their gross margin field by field, and how far off the real number wasRansom land: the term for the acres you keep farming only because they came bundled with the ground you actually wantWhy some of the most successful farms are also the most likely to let a weak field coast, simply because it is easy to ignore when the rest of the operation is carrying itRelated Episodes Five Numbers Every Farm Should Know: Get Your Books in OrderKnow Your Numbers: See Where You Stack UpConnect with Dean Klippenstine:MNP: mnp.ca/en/personnel/dean-klippenstineLinkedIn: Dean Klippenstine Connect with Mike Palmier:MNP: mnp.caConnect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

Canola is priced off documents written in another country, and most of the people growing it have never read one. Susan Stroud spent more than fifteen years in the cash grain business, buying by truck and rail and loading out on barge, before building No Bull Ag into a grain and oilseed analysis service. She joins Dan and co-host Ryan Bonnett of ABB Solutions for a working session on the policy machinery underneath the canola market. What's Inside How a California low carbon fuel standard, commissioned by a movie star governor, set off the renewable diesel boom that built Canada's crush capacityWhat a RIN actually is, what a small refinery exemption does, and what happened when the hardship calculation was quietly rewritten this SeptemberWhy canola oil fell off the tax credit map entirely in 2025, and the single amendment that brought it back for 2026Where canola meal goes, why meal has overtaken oil as the profit driver in crush, and what broiler chickens have to do with your basisHer read on why the risks are stacking bullish, and why she still tells producers to keep selling into strength rather than sitting on their handsResources MentionedNo Bull Ag market insights, with a two week previewAgVentures international tours Connect with Susan Stroud:No Bull Ag: nobullag.comX: @SusanNobull Connect with Ryan Bonnett:ABB SolutionsConnect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

Most producers pay an accountant every year, file the statements, and use them for the bank. David Sullivan's position is that this wastes information the farm has already bought. A consultant for over twenty years and now with Global Ag Risk Solutions, he joins Dan to take a set of farm financials apart and rebuild them into something you can make a decision with, using the five-bucket framework two advisors taught him at his own family's kitchen table in 1999. What's Inside Why the statements your accountant prepares are built for compliance, and what changes when you reorganize the same numbers for managementThe five buckets every farm fits into, and the one-line test for whether a cost belongs in your marginWhat LPM and LBF actually stand for, after years of being said out loud like everyone already knowsWhy net worth can climb for a decade on land appreciation while the operation itself is barely returning anythingThe case for benchmarking against your own last ten years before paying anyone to compare you to the neighboursResources Mentioned:Global Ag Risk SolutionsThe five-bucket worksheet, shared free Connect with David Sullivan:Global Ag Risk SolutionsLinkedIn: David SullivanConnect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

Agriculture does not run along a single track. The agronomy decisions, the farm business pressures, the succession conversations, and the quiet health questions underneath all of it are connected -- and for most people in agriculture, they never land in the same room. Convergence Conference 2027 was built for that room. You are invited. Convergence Conference 2027 | February 2 to 4, 2027 DoubleTree by Hilton, Regina, Saskatchewan Theme: Cross Currents Four pillars. One room. A few hundred people who think the way you do -- or challenge the way you do. Agronomy. Farm Business Management. Health and Wellness. Agri-Food Production. Get your tickets now at: www.eventbrite.ca/e/convergence-conference-2027-tickets-1989958462329   In this briefing, Dan Aberhart sits down with Terry Aberhart (conference founder), Warren Bills (MNP), Laura Shoemaker (farmer and repeat attendee), and Courtney Thevenot (Scotiabank) to talk about what the room has produced over three years and what is being built for 2027. Warren Bills makes a live money-back guarantee on YouTube. Laura Shoemaker proposes a retirement workshop and is elected to chair the committee before the hour is out. We are also working on Ag Rocks for Charity, an opening-night live music and community fundraiser in support of STARS Air Ambulance. We will share more as that piece takes shape.   Topics and Timestamps 0:00 -- Four pillars: agronomy, farm business management, health and wellness, agri-food production 1:00 -- Convergence Conference 2027 is open -- February 2 to 4, DoubleTree Regina 2:00 -- Platform partners and panel introductions: Terry Aberhart, Warren Bills, Laura Shoemaker, Courtney Thevenot 5:00 -- Terry Aberhart on the gap in agriculture that started the conference 8:00 -- Jessica Jansen keynote and the moment that defined what Convergence actually is 10:00 -- Warren Bills on the post-COVID case for in-person gatherings 12:00 -- Laura Shoemaker: the live-concert analogy for being in the room 14:00 -- Courtney Thevenot on what makes this conference different from any other in agriculture 17:00 -- Terry on choosing your own journey -- and why unexpected speakers land hardest 19:00 -- Diamond Fernandez, integrative health, and the cholesterol research nobody expected 22:00 -- Warren's three takeaways: being seen, Matt Havens on generations, Diamond Fernandez 25:00 -- 2027 banquet: Patty Durand and Chris Corbett, family business improv 27:00 -- Laura on farm succession, transition planning, and the retirement conversation agriculture avoids 33:00 -- Warren on the life change he made at Convergence 2025, and his live money-back guarantee for 2027 37:00 -- Terry's three takeaways: network, deep-topic breakouts, agriculture as an optimistic room 46:00 -- The conference hall of fame: years of speakers and why the roster matters now 48:00 -- convergence.ag -- four pillars, why it matters, ticket call to action 49:00 -- Journey Track preview: arriving prepared, going deeper, leaving with a plan 51:00 -- 2027 speaker roster taking shape 53:00 -- Courtney's three takeaways: caliber of speakers, breadth of topics, intimacy of the room 55:00 -- Laura's three takeaways: holistic approach, always at least one thing you didn't expect 58:00 -- Warren's live guarantee on YouTube: e-transfer your money back if you don't get value 1:00:00 -- Audience survey, the retirement workshop idea hatched on air, Cross Currents theme confirmed 1:01:00 -- Closing: February 2 to 4, 2027, DoubleTree Regina, convergence.ag   Connect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future  Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

Most operators assume the best farms in their region are spending a lot more to get a lot more out of their land. The data says otherwise. Travis Girard, a farm management consultant with MNP, and Dean Klippenstine, also with MNP, return for the second session in the Know Your Numbers benchmarking series, drawing on a database that now covers roughly 1,500 farms and 8.5 million acres across the Prairies. What's Inside - Why the production expense gap between top performing farms and average ones came in at just seven dollars an acre, not the twenty five to fifty most people guessed - Seven years of profitability data across the region, including the one year almost everyone assumes was the worst, and wasn't - The three things Dean Klippenstine says separate profitable farms from the rest, starting with crop selection - Why labor, power, and machinery costs come down to mindset more than acres under management - What bringing your three worst fields up to your own farm's average gross margin could be worth in a yearResources MentionedMNPMNP Know Your Numbers benchmarking seriesConnect with Travis Gerrard: Travis GerrardConnect with Dean Klippenstine: Dean Klippenstine Linked In: Dean KlippenstineConnect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

A $1.2 million combine is only as fast as the slowest part of the yard behind it, and for most harvests, that slow part isn't the field. It's the space between the combine and the bin: the trucks, the augers, the dryer, and the person running between all three. Dan Aberhart brought three operators together who've each solved that bottleneck a different way, from a hundred-thousand-dollar retrofit to a fully automated grain-handling site eight months and one generation in the making. What's Inside • How Brennan McArthur built an automated grain-handling system near Watrous that dumps a legal Super B in about eight minutes, and what actually pushed him to build it • Vince Pawluski's remote-control retrofit kit that lets one operator run more than one machine, and the real dollar cost of an idling tractor • Trevor Scherman on why a magnetic drop pan is still the cheapest data-collection device on the farm, even as combine automation does more of the calibration itself • What each guest thinks won't be automated for years yet, and why the combine seat is the last one they expect to see empty • Where smaller automated units fit against Western Canada's big-iron reality, and why swarm technology hasn't earned trust yet If the data side of this conversation landed for you, look for the back-catalog episode with sprayer specialist Tom Wolf on calibration and coverage. It's the same instinct Trevor brings to a drop pan, applied to the boom instead of the header. Resources Mentioned • SureGain (Trevor Scherman's harvest data and drop pan work) • LV Control (Winnipeg-based grain handling automation) • John Deere Operations Center (JD Ops) • Agromatix Pro • STARS Air Ambulance Connect • Connect with Trevor Scherman: SureGain • Connect with Vince Pawluski • Connect with Brennan McArthurConnect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

Canola's up on a good rally, fertilizer's down from its spring highs, and for the first time in a while, Western Canadian producers have a little swagger back. But every rally raises the same question: is this the one you lock in, or the one that convinces you to wait too long? Dave Norris of Norris Crop Consulting and Todd Rowan of IXL Innovations, two grain marketing advisors working with the top tier of Western Canadian producers, join Darren Sander of Crop Aid Nutrition, a working farmer near Rosetown, Saskatchewan, to read where this crop actually stands and what it means for pricing decisions this fall. The math is tight. Two bushels an acre off the Canadian canola average works out to about a million tons. With crush running at 14 million tons and exports near 9 million, a crop landing at 21 million tons instead of 23 leaves someone rationed. The panel breaks down the real story on crop size, why China stepping back into the market matters more than most producers realize, and what the fertilizer and fuel numbers actually tell you about locking in the 2026 crop now. What's Inside Why 2 bushels off the Canadian canola average works out to about a million tons, and what that means for pricing What it means when 14 million tons of crush and 9 million tons of exports meet a crop that might land at 21 million tons Why China stepping into the canola market in August is a signal worth watching, and what it tends to wake up in other buyers Why fertilizer at $850 a ton looks different once you compare it to what canola is actually worth right now The real reason most producers miss good pricing windows: they respond to a push notification, not a website they have to remember to check A live read on the August USDA report as it dropped, and what it changed in the room in real time If this conversation makes you think about who's actually watching your marketing decisions, go back in the catalog for our episode with Derek Squair on what a grain market coach actually gets paid to do, a conversation that asks the same question from the other side of the table. Resources Mentioned Norris Crop Consulting IXL Innovations Crop Aid Nutrition's soil health program Connect with Dave Norris www.nccag.ca Connect with Todd Rowan Text 306-260-3353 Connect with Darren Sander Crop Aid Nutrition   Connect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

Picture the one person your farm cannot run without. Now picture their chair empty tomorrow morning. Can someone else access the accounts, make payroll, or explain what the farm owes and why? If those answers only live in one person's head, the farm is not prepared, no matter how good the balance sheet looks. Jace Young grew up watching his grandfather's 55 year, multimillion dollar Kansas farm operation collapse into bankruptcy in 2005, then built Legacy Farmer to help other families get their financial house in order before the same thing happens to them. Jolene Bolding, Manager of Advisory Services at Farm Credit Canada, has her own story of a farm sale her family decided on before she ever got a seat at the table. Wade Berlinic, Associate Broker with Hammond Realty's Ag Exits and Acquisitions Strategies team, sees what happens when that conversation gets put off until the land is already on the market. Together they walk through why only 12 percent of Canadian farms have an actual transition plan, what it costs a family when nobody has one, and the five stage process Jace uses to move an operation from financial blind spots to a plan everyone in the family can actually see. What's Inside - Why a farm can look bulletproof on paper and still not be prepared for one empty chair - The story behind Jace Young's grandfather losing a 55 year, multimillion dollar Kansas operation, and what it did to the family afterward - Why only 12 percent of Canadian farms have a written transition plan, and what that gap actually costs - The five stage process Legacy Farmer uses to move a family from financial blind spots to a real plan: Position, Production, Profit, Protection, and Prosper - Why the conversation almost never starts with the numbers, it starts with pride, ego, and who is willing to ask for help - What $55 billion in Canadian farm assets transferring in the next decade means for every family still putting this conversation off If this conversation hits home, go back in the catalog for our episode with Elaine Froese on farm family transition and communication, one of the clearest voices in Western Canada on getting these conversations started before they're forced. It also pairs well with our conversation with Robert Andjelic on where farmland capital is actually moving right now. Resources Mentioned Legacy Farmer's five stage framework: Position, Production, Profit, Protection, Prosper Connect with Jace Young LegacyFarmer.com Connect with Jolene Bolding Reach out to your local FCC field office to connect with a business advisor Connect with Wade Berlinic - Hammond RealtyConnect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future   Subscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.