The head of Farm Credit Canada says the corporation’s transformative strategy will yield real results for the industry.
Justine Hendricks took over as president and chief executive officer of the Regina-based crown corporation in 2023 after 17 years at Export Development Canada.
WHY IT MATTERS: Canada’s agriculture productivity growth has long outpaced most of the world, but lately it has dipped.
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In a recent interview, she said one of the first things she did was to go across the country to meet with more than 500 stakeholders to understand the challenges and opportunities in agriculture. That, along with other consultations, informed the strategy the corporation has since implemented.
“One, it’s about being bold. Two, it’s about being a catalyst. And three, it’s about supporting the industry to build for resilience,” she said.
Hendricks said the boldness is in how FCC shows up and handles opportunities as things change, such as new products or services and taking on more risk.
“When we talk about being an industry catalyst, it’s about how FCC by virtue of who we are and what we represent to the sector, we can bring people together,” she said.
This can mean assembling stakeholders to solve a problem, or from a financial point of view, taking a risk that others may not want to and then finding that they do follow suit.
Hendricks said the opportunities are huge, but the reality is that Canada’s productivity rate has been declining for a decade.
According to FCC, it peaked in the 1990s and 2000s, dropped to 1.3 per cent in the 2010s and is projected to be less than one per cent per year if the trend continues. FCC’s vision is to turn that around, get back to the productivity rate the country once had and unlock the enormous potential.
Primary producers are at the centre of all of this, she said.
Primary agriculture represents about 85 per cent of the business and will remain so. She said choices are always made first through the customer lens.
“The investments we’re doing around whether it’s to bring new technologies to the sector, and so forth, is always with a view to support that core business because that’s the heart of the industry,” she said.
“That’s very much the essence of what we’re trying to achieve with the transformation.”
Farmers want FCC to be faster and they want more insights. Hendricks said FCC has invested in internal technology to speed up its adjudication and renewal processes.
“The reason we make those investments is because the faster we can go there, I can release capacity of our account managers to spend more time to give insights, because that’s what our customers are looking for,” she said.
These insights include more thought leadership on topics such as tariffs and what is happening south of the border.
She also said FCC’s transformation is taking place through its AgExpert platform and generative artificial intelligence tool, Root AI. The product is accessible to the public, and there were more than 11,000 questions and answers from the tool in the first few months of its launch.
“We see the producers staying or leveraging Root for about 11 minutes or so, and there’s all sorts of things that they’re asking about,” she added.
“It’s allowing us to see trends. … It’ll become a real interesting feeder for FCC when I connect it back to that boldness.”
Last May, FCC announced it would invest $2 billion by 2030 in ag tech innovation. The money comes from its investment arm, FCC Capital, which was launched in 2024 and in its first year closed nine direct investment deals worth $170 million, invested in three new funds and added a business accelerator.
The announcement noted that Canada’s venture capital investments in ag tech in 2023 were $270 million, which is 10 times below the United States when adjusted for population.
Hendricks said for every dollar FCC invests, the private sector responds with $3.
Investing in innovation directly correlates to improved productivity, she said.
The corporation has relaunched its transition loans to be more flexible, given the price of land and desire to attract new entrants. She said a sustainability product that FCC has been testing is due to be released by early January.
Both Hendricks and executive vice-president of strategy and impact, J.P. Gervais, spoke to farmers at the Grain Expo held during Canadian Western Agribition in late November, where they discussed the realities of tight margins and trade issues as well as long-term opportunities.
They described Canada as a “quiet giant” in global agriculture and said producers have to remain competitive.
Hendricks said FCC will move forward with producers, not ahead of them.
In a report released Dec. 2, FCC reiterated that returning to the historic high of productivity growth would boost farm income and create new opportunities.
The report, Reigniting agricultural productivity in Canada, said improving productivity growth to two per cent per year could result in $30 billion in additional farm income, generate $31 billion in GDP and create 23,000 jobs.
“Canada’s agricultural productivity growth has consistently outpaced other G7 countries for more than three decades, showing the strength and adaptability of our producers,” Gervais said.
“Even so, our growth has slowed. Turning that around will take continued investments to spur innovation and smarter ways of working to help producers improve efficiency and stay competitive in a fast-changing global market.”
The report identified three ways to change that:
• Leverage data and elevate management practices to improve efficiency.
• Scale operations through strategic investment.
• Adopt new technologies and approaches to accelerate innovation.
