At first, he doesn’t seem like the kind of person you owe $17 billion to. Sure, Farm Credit Canada’s national headquarters in Regina is a stunning, shimmering monument. And yes, Greg Stewart’s office here is pristine and elegant in a way you see only in the offices of top echelon executives.
Stewart is also obviously at home here. He manoeuvres in his office with the ease of any farmer in a tractor cab.
But something isn’t what you expect. There are certain types of over-achievers that you get used to finding in places like this. There are the slick promoters and hustlers who are always coming up with the next big idea to shake up the world, and the technocrats always on the lookout for ‘synergies’ and ‘actionables,’ and the big deal makers looking to win more business by buying the companies that are doing it.
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Stewart doesn’t fit any of those categories. There isn’t a lot of ego in this office. The artwork is about farming, not his personal victories.
But don’t mistake, there is no shortage of ambition in the air. Stewart takes his role seriously. He sees his job as fostering the growth of Canadian agriculture — one of the hottest agricultural industries on the globe (in fact, as he will tell, one of the hottest industries on the globe, period).
It’s a job he likes to do well. Indeed, under his stewardship, FCC has scored year after year of double-digit growth in its loan portfolio.
There’s more too. Stewart is also serious as a nation-builder. Agriculture is the lifeblood of rural Canada, and keeping agriculture vibrant is vital to keeping the country vibrant. Indeed, that’s why FCC is government-backed, and why Stewart has this job in the first place.
Yet Stewart also knows that this is a corporation with farm clients who are on a first name basis with the reps working out of FCC’s 100 regional offices, but who couldn’t pick him out of a lineup of bankers if their mortgages depended on it.
As well, despite being the largest lender to agriculture and agribusiness in the country, FCC flies almost entirely below the radar of anyone who’s not directly involved in agriculture.
In fact, when Country Guide arrived at Stewart’s office in downtown Regina late this fall for an interview, photographer in tow, he was a gracious host. After pumping us for updates about harvest progress during a very wet late fall, and expressing concern about how much canola was still out in the field, he endured the photography process with good humour, telling us a bit about his time with FCC.
Then, sitting down for the interview proper, he made a surprising admission that I’ve never heard from another CEO.
“I have to be honest,” Stewart said. “I have no idea why you’re here.”
He didn’t mean he was confused or intimidated by the prospect of an interview. He just honestly couldn’t understand why anyone would want to bother to peer into the inner workings of FCC, or know a bit more about the person who heads it up.
It might be interesting to a banker and agricultural economist like himself — but would anyone else really find it interesting? Aren’t the organization’s customers most interested in the level of service and support they receive out in the field, where the rubber hits the road?
Don’t they really just want to know that they can spot a deal they like, make a call and get a straight yes or no answer
Boom, bust… and echo?
The boom and bust of the 1970s and 80s followed what was, in retrospect, a fairly predictable path.
Farmers were excited by high grain prices during the boom years of the mid-70s and made major investments in their operations in the late 1970s.
Then a general economic malaise hit, along with high inflation in a deadly combination that came to be known as stagflation. In an effort to tame the beast, central banks around the world hiked their rates, which resulted in retail interest rates that peaked north of 20 per cent, explains Manitoba farmer Owen McAuley, who sat on that province’s Farm Debt Review Board for more than a decade. In the end the result was a lot of farms choking on a lot of debt.
“Doesn’t this all sound a bit too familiar?” McAuley asks.
It has provoked more than one person to wonder aloud whether we’re setting the stage for history to repeat itself. But FCC’s Greg Stewart says he’s not convinced history will repeat itself — though it may rhyme.
“I get asked that a lot, but I don’t see a repeat on the horizon,” Stewart told Country Guide during a recent interview. “And the reason I don’t see it is the nature of the farmers we deal with. There’s been an incredible increase in the management ability of a typical farmer over the past 20 years.”
That means the farmer of today is much more aware of the risks that lurk out there — and as a result is likely to have taken steps to protect the farm from any surges in interest rates.
“Most Canadian farmers have done a really good job of hedging their interest rate risk,” Stewart says.
While that won’t guarantee success to every individual operation if rates do climb in the coming years, overall farms are generally better positioned.
Farms will continue to get bigger, so the absolute number of dollars at play in any one farm operation will get much larger too.
“It’s going to continue,” Stewart says. “The size of equipment, the amount you can do in a day, the cost of equipment… it’s all that stuff. We’re trending to larger operations. It does not mean, though, they’re not family farms. They are.”
“If there’s money to be made, people are interested in being involved and I think the future is very bright. The capital requirements are huge, for sure, but we’re now having people outside of agriculture interested,” Stewart says. “That’s also a good thing.”
“We should be proud to be in agriculture and say that it’s a good industry to be involved in, and more people will be interested in being in it, rather than always being depressed,” Stewart says. “I think that’s been one of our challenges historically — we sometimes lament agriculture and yet nobody really wants to do anything else because it’s a great industry and a great industry to be involved in.”
from their local agent in a reasonable time without too much red tape? Isn’t that the real story, not the suit in the executive office?
Except Stewart is the one who knows where FCC is going, and he’s the one who knows the obstacles that must be overcome in order to get there.
Building a career
Stewart never felt destined to work in finance, much less be the top dog in ag lending in Canada. He originally wanted to be a farmer.
He grew up “throughout Western Canada,” moving several times with his family during his younger years, but he always considered home to be a farm that a cousin now owns and operates near Benito, Man.
“I spent every summer I could arrange out there when I was a kid,” Stewart reminisces. “I loved it.”
In fact, he loved it so much that in 1979 he was trying to see if there was any way he could become a farmer himself, until reality set in. Farmland and equipment prices had already spiked on the grain boom of the 1970s, pushing capital requirements up and up.
Getting going and finding that kind of money proved to be pretty-much impossible for anyone starting from scratch. He was disappointed at the time, but after watching the ensuing bust, you get the feeling he knows he dodged a bullet.
“In retrospect, it was for the best,” he says. “It didn’t matter how good you were, if you started in 1980, it was a rough ride.”
The next stop was the construction industry in Edmonton, where he spent several years building houses and operating his own company. He enjoyed the work and met with some success, but later injured his back on the job site.
“I was 24 years old, and they told me I could either have serious back surgery or go find another way to earn a living,” Stewart explains. “I opted to go back to school.”
Back to school meant the University of Manitoba, where he earned an undergraduate degree in agricultural economics in 1987, joining FCC later that year in its Brandon, Man. regional office.
Times were tough and Stewart quickly became immersed in the seriously and frequently painful exercise of working off the hangover from the grain boom and bust — all the while mindful that he was looking at what could have been his
Boom, bust… and echo?
The boom and bust of the 1970s and 80s followed what was, in retrospect, a fairly predictable path.
Farmers were excited by high grain prices during the boom years of the mid-70s and made major investments in their operations in the late 1970s.
Then a general economic malaise hit, along with high inflation in a deadly combination that came to be known as stagflation. In an effort to tame the beast, central banks around the world hiked their rates, which resulted in retail interest rates that peaked north of 20 per cent, explains Manitoba farmer Owen McAuley, who sat on that province’s Farm Debt Review Board for more than a decade. In the end the result was a lot of farms choking on a lot of debt.
“Doesn’t this all sound a bit too familiar?” McAuley asks.
It has provoked more than one person to wonder aloud whether we’re setting the stage for history to repeat itself. But FCC’s Greg Stewart says he’s not convinced history will repeat itself — though it may rhyme.
“I get asked that a lot, but I don’t see a repeat on the horizon,” Stewart told Country Guide during a recent interview. “And the reason I don’t see it is the nature of the farmers we deal with. There’s been an incredible increase in the management ability of a typical farmer over the past 20 years.”
That means the farmer of today is much more aware of the risks that lurk out there — and as a result is likely to have taken steps to protect the farm from any surges in interest rates.
“Most Canadian farmers have done a really good job of hedging their interest rate risk,” Stewart says.
While that won’t guarantee success to every individual operation if rates do climb in the coming years, overall farms are generally better positioned.
Farms will continue to get bigger, so the absolute number of dollars at play in any one farm operation will get much larger too.
“It’s going to continue,” Stewart says. “The size of equipment, the amount you can do in a day, the cost of equipment… it’s all that stuff. We’re trending to larger operations. It does not mean, though, they’re not family farms. They are.”
“If there’s money to be made, people are interested in being involved and I think the future is very bright. The capital requirements are huge, for sure, but we’re now having people outside of agriculture interested,” Stewart says. “That’s also a good thing.”
“We should be proud to be in agriculture and say that it’s a good industry to be involved in, and more people will be interested in being in it, rather than always being depressed,” Stewart says. “I think that’s been one of our challenges historically — we sometimes lament agriculture and yet nobody really wants to do anything else because it’s a great industry and a great industry to be involved in.”
from their local agent in a reasonable time without too much red tape? Isn’t that the real story, not the suit in the executive office?
Except Stewart is the one who knows where FCC is going, and he’s the one who knows the obstacles that must be overcome in order to get there.
Building a career
Stewart never felt destined to work in finance, much less be the top dog in ag lending in Canada. He originally wanted to be a farmer.
He grew up “throughout Western Canada,” moving several times with his family during his younger years, but he always considered home to be a farm that a cousin now owns and operates near Benito, Man.
“I spent every summer I could arrange out there when I was a kid,” Stewart reminisces. “I loved it.”
In fact, he loved it so much that in 1979 he was trying to see if there was any way he could become a farmer himself, until reality set in. Farmland and equipment prices had already spiked on the grain boom of the 1970s, pushing capital requirements up and up.
Getting going and finding that kind of money proved to be pretty-much impossible for anyone starting from scratch. He was disappointed at the time, but after watching the ensuing bust, you get the feeling he knows he dodged a bullet.
“In retrospect, it was for the best,” he says. “It didn’t matter how good you were, if you started in 1980, it was a rough ride.”
The next stop was the construction industry in Edmonton, where he spent several years building houses and operating his own company. He enjoyed the work and met with some success, but later injured his back on the job site.
“I was 24 years old, and they told me I could either have serious back surgery or go find another way to earn a living,” Stewart explains. “I opted to go back to school.”
Back to school meant the University of Manitoba, where he earned an undergraduate degree in agricultural economics in 1987, joining FCC later that year in its Brandon, Man. regional office.
Times were tough and Stewart quickly became immersed in the seriously and frequently painful exercise of working off the hangover from the grain boom and bust — all the while mindful that he was looking at what could have been his
