By Daryl Fransoo
“There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction.”
— John F. Kennedy
There is a quiet crisis in Canadian agriculture. It doesn’t make headlines or trigger emergency meetings, but it is real. Across too much of our industry, initiative has been replaced with hesitation, courage with caution, and leadership with maintenance. We have grown timid, content to manage the past instead of creating the future.
We’ve seen this before in Canada. We led the world with Nortel, a company born from Canadian innovation, and watched it collapse under the weight of indecision and caution. We had a second chance with BlackBerry, a global icon that redefined communication, yet we hesitated again. Twice, we mistook comfort for success, and twice we lost the leadership we had earned.
Agriculture now stands at a similar crossroads. We have built a world-class system admired for its science, efficiency, and resilience. But if we keep managing yesterday instead of building tomorrow, we will repeat the same national mistake: protecting what we have until it is gone.
If we are not careful, Canada will lose its agricultural edge not because we were outcompeted, but because we stopped competing.
We’ve confused governance with leadership. Leadership is about direction, not deference. Yet in too many organizations, decisions are stalled, delayed, or delegated upward until urgency is lost. Boards are meant to guide, not govern every move. Executives are meant to lead, not wait for permission.
When everyone hesitates, action dies. The best boards empower courage and reward initiative. They do not smother it in process. Leadership requires judgment, not unanimity.
Our industry is rich in organizations and associations, and that should be a strength. But too often, we have allowed fragmentation to replace focus. Each group guards its territory and message, even as our collective influence erodes. We have built silos when the moment demands bridges.
Canada does not need more voices shouting over each other. We need unity of purpose, alignment on priorities, and collaboration that transcends ego. The challenges we face like trade barriers, regulatory paralysis or infrastructure bottlenecks cannot be solved in isolation. It is time to act like one sector with one ambition.
Agriculture proudly calls itself farmer-led, but leadership means more than repeating what is popular. It means making hard choices that protect the long-term health of the sector, even when those choices create short-term discomfort.
Too many decisions are made from fear. Fear of pushback. Fear of change. Fear of losing support. Yet progress has never been born from fear. Protecting comfort has become policy in too many places. And comfort, while pleasant, is the enemy of progress.
We talk constantly about innovation, but too often we punish the very people willing to take risks. Inside our institutions, creativity is filtered, bold ideas are shelved, and initiative is met with bureaucracy. We have become so risk adverse that we default to not rocking the boat.
Meanwhile, on the land, farmers innovate every day, testing, adapting, failing, and trying again. That spirit built Canadian agriculture. It should be reflected in how we lead it, and remember that innovation is spurred in a culture that celebrates curiosity, risk, and resilience. We need to restore that balance.
Canada has seen what happens when courage gives way to comfort. We have lived it before. Nortel’s collapse and BlackBerry’s fall were not failures of innovation; they were failures of adaptation. We had the talent, the ideas, and the market leadership. What we lacked was the courage to evolve while we were ahead.
Agriculture is showing the same warning signs. Productivity growth has dropped from nearly 3 percent to below 1. Our global competitiveness ranking continues to slide. We are not falling behind because others are smarter or better resourced. We are falling behind because we have become too comfortable, too fragmented, and too slow to act.
Canada cannot afford to lose another defining industry to timidity.
Farming has never been for the faint of heart. Every season, producers face volatile markets, weather, regulation, and risk, and they do it with grit, optimism, and belief in a better tomorrow. That same courage must return to every boardroom and leadership table in Canadian agriculture.
This is our moment to lead, not to wait. To act boldly, to collaborate deeply, and to craft a new vision for a stronger, freer, more competitive agriculture sector.
We owe it to every farmer who built this industry, and every young person who will inherit it, to choose courage over comfort, and to remember that progress is not achieved through consensus, but through conviction.
— Daryl Fransoo is the chair of the Wheat Growers Association
Media Contact:
Darcy Pawlik
Executive Director, Wheat Growers Association
Email: dpawlik@wheatgrowers.ca
Phone: (306) 361-5667
About the Wheat Growers
Founded in 1970, the Wheat Growers is a voluntary farmer-run advocacy organization dedicated to developing public policy solutions that strengthen the profitability and sustainability of farming, and the agricultural industry as a whole.
For more information please visit: wheatgrowers.ca. Click here to see who is helping to advocate for grain farmers.