FCC opens new office in Nova Scotia

Sep 22, 2023

Photo (from left): Holding the oversized scissors are Justine Hendricks, FCC president and CEO, and Chief Bob Gloade of the Millbrook First Nation at the FCC Millbrook office grand opening.

By Andrew Joseph, Farms.com; Image courtesy of Farm Credit Canada

Earlier this month, Farm Credit Canada (FCC) officially opened its new office on the Millbrook First Nation in Millbrook, Nova Scotia.

On September 15, 2023, Justine Hendricks, FCC President and Chief Executive Officer, was joined by Chief Bob Gloade of the Millbrook First Nation to inaugurate the first FCC office on reserve land.

“The Millbrook First Nation FCC office is an example of our commitment to investing in Indigenous communities,” Hendricks extolled. “Today is a community celebration, and it’s very fitting that we celebrate history being made close to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30.”

From employment opportunities to advisory services, the FCC office in Millbrook will catalyze Indigenous involvement in agriculture and food for generations to come.

“We’re excited to welcome this new FCC office. Having the first FCC office in an Indigenous community shows the willingness of a Crown corporation to work with Indigenous people. This office will provide FCC employees with the opportunity to experience working here in beautiful Millbrook. We encourage staff to learn about our community and participate in local events. We look forward to working with FCC to identify employment opportunities for our community members as they arise,” said Chief Gloade.

Added Hendricks: “We have an opportunity to learn from Indigenous Peoples and their close connection to the land. This will not only help the industry to innovate and evolve but also enhance Canada’s ability to feed the world. With more producers and entrepreneurs at the table, achieving zero hunger becomes more possible.”

The Millbrook office serves more than 360 customers with a total loan portfolio of $133 million in agriculture and $5.5 million in agri-food. The new office space has allowed the local FCC team to grow and better serve the needs of customers and the agriculture industry, bringing the number of employees in the Millbrook office to nine. The 4,500-square-foot space was leased for five years, beginning in February 2023.

FCC is known as a Canadian leader in agriculture and food lending, dedicated to the industry that feeds the world. Its employees are committed to the long-standing success of those who produce and process Canadian food by providing flexible financing, AgExpert business management software, information, and knowledge.

The FCC provides a complement of expertise and services designed to support the complex and evolving needs of food businesses. As a financial Crown corporation, FCC is a stable partner that reinvests profits back into the industry and communities it serves. For more information, visit www.fcc.ca.

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”