Agriculture is a significant player in the economy, but it doesn’t get an equal share of large government or large pension or private growth fund investment.

WHY IT MATTERS: The agriculture and food sectors can help Canada accomplish some of its goal of attracting $1 trillion in investment over five years, but the recent track record of growth funding has been poor.

Growth capital is needed by companies at the stage when they are operational and need to scale to be successful. That’s often when the most funding is needed and is beyond the ability of venture capital funds and smaller funders to provide.

“In the Canadian context, a lot of where that money is coming from would be in the early stage,” says Lisa Ashton, agriculture and nature policy lead with RBC Thought Leadership.

A growing number of incubators and accelerators, such as Emmertech in agriculture and District Ventures in food packaging, are now in place to help earlier in the agriculture technology business development process.

But once funding needs grow past $15 million, to help fund manufacturing or processing or global distribution, most of those groups are out.

Government growth funds don’t distribute money in the agriculture world in proportion to agriculture and food’s standing in the economy, and that’s limiting the sector’s potential as a strategic asset for the country.

Agriculture has received about two per cent of government-backed growth funding and four per cent of total growth funding in the past five years.

The RBC report says that for growth capital in agri-food to align with its contribution to GDP, funding needs to grow by 36 per cent to $13 billion from now to 2030, compared to the past five years.

“There is a mismatch between the framing of Canada’s agri-food sector as a superpower and its strategic advantages with the actual scale and focus of investments domestically,” the report says.

That growth needs ideas and people, but it also needs money, and the money isn’t flowing into agriculture right now.

Traditional funding won’t do it, the sector will need growth money from more generalist funds, says Ashton.

“Navigating that can be quite hard for generalists that don’t have a lot of exposure to agri-food,” she says. “It goes back to the talent challenge we see in agri-food and having more Canadians or people working in Canada who have an understanding of the sector.”

Funding in other countries

Other middle-power countries have better funding of agri-food from growth funds. Ashton says that once companies reach the need for $15 million in funding, the funder options drop off, and that’s a challenge in most countries. However, the drop off is much deeper in Canada than in Japan, the U.K., Netherlands and Germany.

“I wouldn’t say any country has a perfect example,” she says, but most of them outperform Canada in growth funding for agriculture and food.

What could be improved?

The RBC report listed five areas for improvement to help unlock more growth funding.

1. Improve intellectual property and academic incentives to increase commercialization of research, especially from universities.
2. Create an AI-driven concierge, housed within a national organization, that provides one-stop information to help manage the support drop off that happens when a startup company outgrows incubators or accelerators.
3. Have agri-food experts translate industry knowledge for generalist investors.
4. Align government growth, investment and infrastructure funds to better fit with national strategic priorities, especially agri-food.
5. Help mitigate revenue uncertainty for companies creating value-added products in agriculture and food.

The goal is to grow global leaders in agriculture and food, to create ‘unicorn’ level companies with at least $1 billion in revenue. Ashton says these are rare in agriculture, but Canada has none, whereas most other major agriculture producing countries have produced some.

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The Americans’ real anger is that they didn’t negotiate well regarding tariff rate quotas (TRQs) for new access to the Canadian dairy market during the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), said Andrea van Vugt, with Wellington Advisory, which advises Dairy Farmers of Ontario.

That means there’s likely room to negotiate on dairy with the U.S.

WHY IT MATTERS: The loss of supply management would have a significant impact on rural communities, particularly in Ontario and Quebec.

“I think the easy win is on TRQ administration,” said Stephen de Boer, who is on Wellington Advisory’s strategic advisory board and was previously part of the federal government advising on areas like defence. He also served as an ambassador, including to the World Trade Organization.

De Boer and van Vugt were part of a discussion at the Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s 2026 annual meeting in Toronto, held Jan. 13-15.

There’s a route to allowing the Americans a new way to administer TRQs, “and call it a day”, said de Boer.

When Canada negotiated its most recent trade agreements, including CUSMA and the Comprehensive Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), it did not spell out how we would administer the TRQs, and that allowed Canada to give the TRQs to Canadian processors, not directly to retailers.

New Zealand also didn’t like that this method of TRQ allocation was the same in the CPTPP.

“It’s not what they expected, but it is what we negotiated,” said de Boer.

Van Vugt and de Boer also agreed that the negotiations would likely mean more access to the Canadian market for American products.

However, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of appetite for eliminating supply management for poultry and dairy.

“When I’ve talked to U.S. officials, and when I say U.S. officials, I mean certain U.S. officials who may live in Canada, representing U.S. interests in Canada,” they are concerned about the U.S. dairy sector facing competition from Canadian farmers, because they know that will happen, said van Vugt.

That doesn’t mean that Trump couldn’t make a larger, unexpected request, she said, as that’s in character for Trump, and he has prioritized dairy as an irritant.

De Boer said the Americans also understand that they use some supply management techniques to manage dairy production, too.

He added he expects chicken negotiations not to be arduous. “Our negotiators are excellent, particularly in negotiating in this space.”

Why the CUSMA review is toothless

The inclusion of a review clause in the CUSMA agreement was a step up from the previous North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) because there was no such clause.

However, the clause has little power, said van Vugt.

“The review clause really is just, we’re going to get together, we’re going to talk if we disagree about things, we’re going to get together again in a few years and talk again. That’s it,” she said.

The review clause has become the “pointy end of a stick” that Trump is using, said de Boer, and it could lead to greater pressure tactics like the Americans threatening to leave the agreement.

He said he expects at minimum that CUSMA countries will be into yearly reviews, until renegotiation.

Trump operates by trying to gain leverage in anything he does, so it makes sense he will try the same game around CUSMA.

“I understand why he’s doing it, but I don’t think he has as much leverage as he thinks he has,” said de Boer, adding that Trump could take many actions, including adding new tariffs or blocking the border to access to some Canadian products.

Negotiators still to be determined

Van Vugt and de Boer both expressed their dismay that Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the United States and a skilled trade negotiator, has resigned her role. New negotiators in the federal government are being vetted and should be revealed soon. Van Vugt said it won’t be the new ambassador to the U.S. Mark Wiseman. Ambassadors usually don’t negotiate trade deals.

Van Vugt called Hillman “an incredible representative of Canada” and “an incredible advocate with incredible knowledge of the supply management industry.”

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Why it matters: Canadian manufacturing needs to diversify from so much reliance on the United States, and agriculture manufacturers are taking steps to do that.

Agricultural Manufacturers of Canada had its first display at the biannual Agritechnica show in Hanover, Germany, said chief executive officer Donna Boyd. Global marketing has always been part of the organization’s mandate, but a new export development strategy has added extra impetus.

Read: More Agritechnica 2025 coverage with the Western Producer

That meant a new AMC display at the world’s largest machinery show.

“The pressures on ag and on manufacturing are immense,” said Boyd during an interview after the official opening of the Canada Pavilion.

“We have gone through fits and spirts for our members, but this one is a particularly challenging one.”

Prices have declined across major North American commodity crops, and tariffs and threats from the United States have made it more difficult to get products into that major market for Canadian equipment makers.

With a challenging trade environment can also come opportunities, said Chris Lane, president and CEO of the Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership, which had the display with the largest grouping of Canadian companies at the show.

“Canadian products are being embraced by other markets like they never have been before,” he said.

Companies are having conversations with individuals and finding new distribution routes, said Lane.

There were three areas at Agritechnica featuring Canadian companies: the STEP display, the AMC display and another smaller one featuring Manitoba companies. There are also companies that have their own displays independent of the three Canadian-branded areas.

Networking opportunities

The potential to make connections at Agritechnica brought numerous Canadian companies to the show for the first time.

One is Horst Welding, which owns a diverse number of farm manufacturing brands, including loader attachments, snow moving equipment, seeding equipment and hay handling equipment from its base in Ontario.

Horst Welding’s Gary Bouwers said the company is looking at new markets it hasn’t pursued before for exports, including Europe. It has historically sent most of its exports to the U.S. or Australia.

It’s not just access to the European market that brings people to Agritechnica, says Paul Latham with Horst Welding, it’s the international attendees at the show.

“Canadian manufacturers have a good reputation worldwide.”

At the STEP pavilion, which included 21 companies, Steve Rogoshewsky was hoping for new connections for his Adaptive Agriculture Solutions company, based in Saskatchewan.

Rogoshewsky’s company provides in-bin heating and a scalable bin monitoring solution.

“We’re excited to be here and expand our markets to Europe. Our product is perfected now in the harsh conditions of Canadian winter and it’s ready for expansion across the world.”

The ability for STEP to bring together companies from multiple provinces and making it easy for them to get to Agritechnica — handling bookings and shipping and logistics — has helped increase the numbers at the show, said Lane.

The organization has been bringing western Canadian agriculture technology companies to the show for 20 years.

“At Agritechnica, it’s hard to be small, so the bigger footprint you have, the more attention you can get collectively for our companies here,” he said.

“The Canada brand means a lot in Europe, so I think that helps, too.”

Thunderstruck Ag, a Saskatchewan manufacturer known for its concaves and other products for harvest and combine efficiency, is at its second Agritechnica.

President Jeremy Matuszewski said in one day at Agritechnica he talked to farmers from Croatia, Hungary and Denmark, along with some from Canada.

Canadians need to be exposed to the rest of the world, he said.

The country thinks it’s the best, he added, but the past year has shown that “there are a lot of places around the world, Brazil, Europe, where they’re using technology that we’re not looking at.”

The front half of the AMC Canada Pavilion was dominated by the distinctive orange and red of Versatile tractors making their way back to Agritechnica — and the European market.

Canada’s only tractor manufacturer was hit by COVID-19 supply chain issues and knocked out of the market, said Grant Adolph, chair of the Buhler Group of Companies, which include Versatile and Farm King.

The company was also owned by Russian Rostelmash, which became a liability during the global backlash against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

Versatile was sold to the Basak Tractor division of OSKO Holding, a Turkish company, and that’s given it the opportunity to increase its global reach again.

Adolph said Versatile is looking to expand its dealer network in Europe and to bring its Genesis tractor to the continent. It will take about a year to meet regulations, but until then the company will have its large Delta Track and small four-wheel-drive tractors, which were already European Union approved, to sell in the market.

He also expected to see the Versatile line expand in North America with smaller tractors in the Basak Tractor lineup.

“Today, with uncertainty of our friends to the south, it’s probably the perfect time to be diversified.”

He called on Canadian governments to understand the importance of agriculture equipment to the country’s manufacturing exports and to support it.

The arrival of many new Canadian companies to Agritechnica should help make that case.

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Why it matters: The failure of some agriculture startup companies is tied to their inability to understand problems that farmers need to be solved.

Three companies with close connections to the agriculture sector answered questions about how they made sure their products met the needs of farmers during the AgTech Breakfast at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show 2025.

Jesse Wiebe of Startup TNT, an organization that brings together investors in agriculture technology, hosted the panel discussion.

Colin Yates, who co-founded VETSon, a virtual veterinary app for farm animals, with his father, veterinarian Glen Yates, had a built-in connection to his major clients. Glen had years of experience in veterinary practice, so he understood the needs of animal healthcare providers.

“We didn’t have to go find a partner. We didn’t have to go find a business willing to do it,” said Colin Yates.

“It’s about having those relationships. And luckily, my relationship was with my father, who’s already had those 50 years of experience that we could develop and build upon that.”

Finding farmers to test and use VETSon’s service was easy, as a shortage of veterinarians created an unmet need for virtual veterinarians.

In fact, Yates found that farmers were pushing veterinarians to adopt the virtual veterinary technology.

“The farmers wanted this technology, the farmers wanted access and were willing to adopt it.”

Cattlytics founder Shari van de Pol invested time figuring out what help dairy farmers needed as she developed the numerous dairy data and programming services her company provides.

The computer engineer and large animal veterinarian developed trust with farmers, who then allowed her to analyze their dairy farm data. A revelation about a drop in milk production when cows were fed unfermented corn silage harvested in October was the first step, but the really valuable data showed the months it took for the cows to recover.

“That was the moment where I’m like, we can do so much here, we can do so much in such an interesting, complicated system,” she said.

Van de Pol developed trust with farmers with her technical expertise as a veterinarian, but she’s also a fiddler and played during dairy farmer gatherings, creating another level of connection to her future customers.

Matt Stevens of Finite Farms found another way to connect directly with farm-level demand and information for the apple thinning and harvesting machine — he bought an orchard.

Stevens called the orchard a “fixer-upper” based near Simcoe, Ont., but it enabled him to become a commercial apple grower. The investment in the game helped create relationships with other apple growers, including one of the leading apple growers in Ontario. That apple grower insisted that Stevens use their farms to test his machine, which he’s been developing through numerous iterations quickly.

The robot evolved from a first-generation idea to a functioning unit by the end of this past summer.

Wiebe said that the ability of company founders to have problems of their own to solve, such as Stevens needing more automation to run his orchard, is a test for those companies.

“If you’re a farmer here, and you’re looking for those technology companies that you may want to use on a farm, ask them, ‘are they from the industry?’”

For more coverage of Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, visit Farmtario’s landing page.

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The field is called epigenetics, and Antler Bio is one of the first companies to create a testing program to prove management-genetic interactions.

See all of our Ag in Motion coverage at the Western Producer.

Andy Lessey, chief operating officer of Antler Bio, was at Ag in Motion 2025 as part of the Cultivator by Conexus display. Cultivator is a Saskatchewan-based technology accelerator that has a partnership with InnovateUK to have some British tech companies as part of its cohorts.

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Senft will continue to serve as CEO until the end of January 2026.

“I think after five years, it’s time for new leadership,” he said during the 2025 Seeds Canada conference in Quebec City.

He said someone with more seeds experience would make sense now that the organization is up and running.

Agriculture sector veteran

Seeds Canada was formed about five years ago in an amalgamation between the Canadian Plant Technology Agency, the Commercial Seed Analysts Association of Canada, the Canadian Seed Institute and the Canadian Seed Trade Association.

Senft has had numerous roles in the agriculture sector over his career, but several of them have been managing newly merged organizations. He oversaw the newly merged Grain Farmers of Ontario organization previous to his work at Seeds Canada.

“This is pretty big news for us,” said Brent Collins, president of Seeds Canada.

He thanked Senft and said the organization will have six months for him to finish up some of the projects he’s working on.

Seed modernization

Senft led Seeds Canada through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s seed act modernization process, now five years into the process. A position paper with proposals for act changes is expected any day. There will be more consultations yet before the changes are posted in the Canada Gazette.

He says five years is a long time, and a lot of staff time has gone into the process.

“We’ll see what the end result is.”

He said despite moving some rules governing seeds from legislation to regulation, which can be changed more easily, the CFIA still retains control over many of the seed sector rules and processes.

The larger organization has more resources to react to issues in the sector.

Senft says the founding organizations are better together as Seeds Canada and points to the recent challenges around tariffs as an example. Previously, the smaller organizations would have had to go outside their offices to get the expertise needed to manage the tariff threats. Now they have access to those assets.

“We’ve been able to have the resources in place to be able to analyze that and advise our members accordingly.”

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David Hudson of IMI International, a global consumer tracking company, says there’s growing support for Canadian dairy products – even above the lofty levels of support of the past 10 years.

“Cutting through the noise, there is a lot of love for Canadian dairy farmers,” he said at the recent Dairy Business Summit put on by the Canadian Dairy XPO in Stratford on April 1.

The overall sentiment towards dairy farmers in Canada has risen from 74 per cent very positive or somewhat positive in January to 81 per cent very positive or somewhat positive in March.

He says the positive sentiment is expressed across all age demographics.

Support for dairy farmers isn’t new and has been high for the almost 10 years the company has been tracking it in Canada. What’s different is the increases in the past few months.

Hudson also showed numbers that illustrated growth in people’s intent to purchase Canadian products. A recent survey showed that 34 per cent of Americans purchased products because they were made in the U.S.A., whereas Canadians’ purchase of Canadian products jumped 11 per cent in a week to 63 per cent. Hudson says he expects the next survey will show Canadians’ commitment to Canadian products will jump to 80 per cent.

Opportunities with new Canadians

There were close to 500,000 new immigrants arriving in Canada in 2024, which represents new market opportunities, says Hudson. The federal government has since lowered the number of immigrants coming in the future, but those who are now here are committed to using dairy products.

New immigrants from parts of Asia are more committed to cooking with dairy than other Canadians, but Hudson said to make sure to give them the dairy products they are used to, along with introducing them to new ones.

That follows the trend seen by Quality Cheese, where they are making more paneer, a cooking cheese popular in India. Albert Borgo, said at the dairy business summit that the company he owns with his brothers is working on more ethnic dairy products, as the company expands capacity at its Orangeville plant.

He says there’s real interest in higher protein products in the marketplace and some people are getting that from dairy products.

New immigrants are more interested in quality than quantity and aren’t as focused on price as other Canadians, says Hudson.

“The freshness of dairy is likely to resonate with newcomers,” he says.

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Dr. Leluo Guan, of the University of British Columbia (UBC) was recently awarded $7.9 million in funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). She is the Canada Research Chair in Animal Function Genomics and Microbiome.

Other researchers on the project include Guan’s colleagues from UBC those from the University of Guelph, University of Alberta, University of Manitoba, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Canadian bovine genetics company Semex.

There are products that will reduce methane in cattle, such as Bovaer and some types of seaweed. However, researchers expected to find an improvement in feed efficiency, a benefit to farmers in return for reducing methane, and most of the technologies have not found the expected feed efficiency improvement.

That’s sent research back to the lab to try to figure out more about the hydrogen cycle in the rumen of beef and dairy cattle.

The answer is likely tied to the flow of hydrogen in the rumen.

“All of the stoichiometric equations that we would use to predict energy flow would have predicted that we would have seen that value (improved feed efficiency) in the animal. And we’re very perplexed as to why we haven’t seen that,” said Dr. Tim McAllister, principal research scientist for cattle production with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, based in Lethbridge, Alta.

The five-year study will look at the rumen microbiome and the methane-creation processes that happen there, and aims to find technology and management changes that can make rumen function most efficient. Guan has been conducting research in this area for years.

“We know that rumen microbial fermentation is essential to the growth and development of cattle and that methane formation is a necessary part of that process,” Guan said in a UBC article. “Rather than trying to stop these processes, we want to reduce the amount of methane they generate. In this study, that means looking at diet, nutrition, management and more.”

Data will be examined from more than 10,000 animals across Canada. Guan hopes to analyze the data using metagenomic and machine learning analysis.

“By changing the hydrogen flow from being used for methane synthesis to short chain fatty acids production, we can provide more energy sources for cattle and lower the methane at the same time. By targeting the microbes involved in these pathways, we could ultimately to reach a ‘win-win’ situation,” she said.

The project also includes a deep dive into cattle genetics, one of Dr. Guan’s specialties. University of Guelph has resulted in the ability of Canadian dairy producers to select for more methane-efficient cows.

Guan’s research has shown that rumen microbes can be heritable in beef cattle.

The Canadian beef sector has set a goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent by 2030 and dairy farmers plan to be carbon neutral by 2050.

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Syngenta’s Enogen trait produces corn that contains more alpha-amylase enzyme which makes the breakdown of starch to sugars more efficient. Enogen corn feed is about five per cent more feed efficient than corn without the trait.

Reducing the need for feed means fewer methane emissions, which is attractive to companies like McDonald’s which aim to show they’re reducing carbon emissions in their supply chain.

The program will start first in the United States, but Dan Wright, who leads the Enogen business in North America and seeds in Canada for Syngenta, says bringing the program called Feed Forward to Canada is a priority.

“There’s a lot of beef and dairy in Canada and expanding the Feed Forward program into Canada is something we’re really active on to make happen,” he says.

Farmers will receive a direct payment from Syngenta for four cents per head per day for each animal on the feed. In return for the payment, McDonald’s owns the carbon intensity offset asset.

Producers also have to commit to feeding Enogen corn at 50 per cent of the starch in the cattle’s ration on a dry matter basis in a Total Mixed Ration. The corn can be in any form it’s usually fed on a farm, including silage, high moisture corn or grain corn. Enogen is approved for food and feed use in Canad and the United States, but it is kept from the food stream as the composition is different than most corn. It’s also used in ethanol.

There are numbers of days on feed required to qualify including:

• Backgrounding – 70 to 120 days
• Finishers – 120 to 225 days
• Dairy beef – 180 days

As a result, a dairy beef animal fed for 180 days would qualify for a $7.20 payment, while an animal backgrounded for 120 days would receive $4.80.

To qualify for the payment, farmers have to file a feeding report, a closeout report and an invoice that shows the proof of purchase for seed, all managed by a stewardship contract. There’s also a requirement for verification.

Wright says trials have been underway for three years on the project to fine-tune reporting and operational requirements.

“I think we’ve got to a pretty good space,” he says.

The data provided to Syngenta is aggregated and anonymous when it’s sent to McDonald’s and the payment is made directly from Syngenta to the farm. Avoiding more players in the process and keeping it efficient was part of the testing period and a priority, says Wright.

McDonald’s, which also has its U.S. meat processor Lopez Foods in the project as a partner, says that for 1,000 head of beef cattle on feed it expects per year:

• 178 tonnes CO2e in greenhouse gas reduction
• a 69-acre reduction (28 hectares) in land use for growing feed
• a reduction of 22 million litres of water used
• 231,000 kilowatt-hours energy savings

The partnership with McDonald’s runs to 2030, says Wright, and he expects it to grow over years, like the adoption of any new technology. McDonald’s has set a target of offsetting 164,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.

He says there are discussions ongoing with other consumer packaged goods companies. To start, the payments only cover beef and dairy beef production, but there could be dairy opportunities in the future.

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The Canadian Dairy Commission announced Nov. 1, 2024 that a decline in feed prices and the stabilization of other costs on dairy farms across the country means that the benchmark on-farm price for milk will decline by 0.0237 per cent starting in February 2025.

Why it matters: The set price for milk will help dairy producers plan for their business operations in 2025.

An increase in the consumer price index, which determines half of the milk price kept the decline in milk price from being greater.

A part of the supply management system, the Canadian Dairy Commission is the quasi-governmental body which determines farm-gate milk pricing in Canada.

The price that consumers pay at the grocery store for milk is influenced by the farm-gate milk price, but also other costs added by different steps in the supply chain.

The final price that farmers receive for their milk is also affected by regional dairy consumption trends and the world price for milk.

The 2025 farm-gate milk price reflects the lack of exceptional circumstances that have affected the price of milk during and after the COVID pandemic.

The Canadian Dairy Commission has been criticized for its lack of transparency, but a technical briefing held in advance of the announcement was attended by only two trade media journalists and one mainstream journalist from Quebec.

How is milk price determined?
The price for milk at the farm is determined by a cost production survey of 250 farms of different production types across the country. Survey results have a statistical margin of error of two per cent.

The 2023 indexed cost of production was $93.09 per hectolitre. The 2024 price, which takes into account the 2023 survey, and then an indexing of information from three months ending in August, shows a cost of production of $90.36 per hectolitre, a decline of 2.93 per cent, mostly based on the drop in the cost of feed, as global crop prices have declined in 2024.

Trend lines also show a stabilization of production costs in 2024, compared to 2022 and 2023.

The milk price is half based on the indexed cost of production and half on the consumer price index, which has increased 2.89 per cent, leading to a decrease in the farm gate milk price of 0.0237 per cent.

The 2023 cost of production survey results can be found here.

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