Unlocking Innovation, Ep 1: A national call to action
Welcome to the first episode in a podcast series focused on Unlocking Innovation for Canadian agriculture.
To kick off the series, host Shaun Haney, founder of RealAgriculture, sits down with Dave Smardon, CEO of Bioenterprise, to set up the series and what to expect, building off of a cross-Canada face-to-face tour and a published report. This first discussion frames Canada’s ag innovation system as lagging, fragmented, and overdue for transformation.
Smardon underscores that while Canada is ranked in the top 10 globally for agricultural research, its ability to commercialize and adopt innovation slides it toward the low 20s in ranking. “Not good enough means not good enough,” he says, warning that the country is falling behind competitors such as China, Brazil and Europe.
The conversation explores four structural challenges: fragmentation and insularity across jurisdictions, overly complex regulation, weak support for entrepreneurs, and a lack of capital directed toward ag-tech commercialization. Stakeholder roundtables held across Canada—bringing together farmers, venture capitalists, government funders, and incubators—surfaced these gaps and informed the report’s recommendations.
One of the most striking gaps, Smardon says, is the disconnect between innovators and farmers. Many promising technologies are developed without farmer input, resulting in “solutions” that lack on-farm feasibility or desire for adoption. He says that it's clear that embedding farmers in every stage of development should be standard.
If Canada embraces change, success would mean a cohesive, collaborative ecosystem where innovations are tracked from lab to market, supported by aligned programs and capital, and achieving global reach. Smardon cautions that complacency would leave the country perpetually behind.
Over the next five episodes, you'll hear from roundtable participants to dig deeper into regulatory reform, funding models, and governance that ultimately create this call to action for the sector.
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