Show Notes
Susan Stroud of No Bull Ag spent more than fifteen years merchandising physical grain on the Mississippi river system before going out on her own, and now reads US biofuel regulation so producers do not have to. She joins Dan and co-host Ryan Bonnett of ABB Solutions to trace how a California carbon rule turned canola oil from a food crop into an energy crop, what happened when the small refinery exemption calculation changed in September, and why an amendment to the production tax credit put canola back in the game for 2026. The tension is that the single largest driver of Western Canadian canola prices is now a set of policy documents written in Washington and Sacramento, and almost nobody growing the crop has read one. Producers walk away understanding what RINs and exemptions actually do to their basis, where canola meal goes and why meal rather than oil is now driving crush margins, and why she thinks the risk is stacking higher while still insisting you keep selling into it.
More from Growing the Future
Greg Patterson of A&L Laboratories Canada opens Engine of the Soil Season 2 by showing why a nitrogen rate depends on more than a nitrate test. He walks through the variable rate models his team has built since the mid-1990s: soil moisture, the soil’s holding capacity, estimated nitrogen release, and the balance of potassium, magnesium and calcium. Manitoba agronomist Trevor Thornton adds what he sees in a tight year, when growers cut sampling and variable rate first. Melissa Werkema joins the talk on boron, balance and what agronomists owe their clients. The takeaway for growers is to check what the soil can supply before changing a rate.
Tim Hammond of Hammond Realty, 30 years in farmland, returns six months after he told the room the market was splitting. His read now is that the Saskatchewan farmland market is not weakening, it is maturing. Listings are fewer but bigger, the dollar value of farmland listed is at a ten-year high, and affordability and access to capital are the real limits. With Dan Aberhart, a live poll and a few questions from the room, he covers how families can get a transfer done, and the meeting he now holds for himself, with his accountants, lawyer, lender and wealth advisors at one table.
Dan Aberhart opens a GTF Productions live session on a farm’s busy-season paperwork and the question he hears most: what can I take off my plate first? The session then follows the room. Audience members ask about tracking grain basis behind a company login and reconciling soil test lab reports. Dan builds a basis tracker demo, a soil test tracker and a personal morning dashboard by voice while they watch. He is open that the basis numbers in the demo were fictional, and that on data security he is a visionary, not a security expert. The takeaway for people in agriculture is that the starting point is context and one small job, not a tool.
Dan Aberhart talks with Patti Durand, author of The Future Leader, and Chris Corbett of Brightrack about why working hard and waiting is not a succession plan. They ask three questions: how well you know yourself, your farm business and your farm family. The tension is that operationally strong successors and founders who are doing their best are both missing the conversations that would prepare them for the handoff. The takeaway for people in agriculture is to start the conversation early, say what you don’t know, and agree on the outcome you want before you ask advisors for options.
Dan Aberhart talks with Craig Macfie, a CPA, P.Ag. and founder of Spring CFO, about why so many farm owners make next year’s decisions on bookkeeping that is months behind. Craig, a fractional CFO who works alongside farm owners, walks through the building blocks of farm finance. They run from strategy and risk, through bookkeeping, reporting and forecasting, to the conversation with the bank. The tension is that the numbers lenders and advisors rely on are estimates, and they are often not current. The takeaway for people in agriculture is that strategy comes before growth, and the bookkeeping cannot be the thing that slips.