Currently serving as the interim executive director of the Agricultural Adaptation Council, MacTavish is deeply committed to addressing generational challenges in the agricultural workforce. She emphasizes the need for mentorship, flexible work arrangements, and creating career pathways that retain talented individuals within the broader agricultural ecosystem. Her approach focuses on valuing employees beyond financial compensation and recognizing the unique skills developed in agricultural work.

MacTavish's leadership philosophy centers on adaptation, resilience, and curiosity. She sees organizational transitions not as obstacles but as exciting opportunities for innovation. By maintaining enthusiasm during periods of change and keeping a forward-looking perspective, she believes agricultural organizations can attract and nurture the next generation of leaders who are passionate about the sector's future.

In this conversation, Neil Hetherington, CEO of Daily Bread Food Bank, offers a clear-eyed view from inside one of Canada’s most critical—yet least understood—institutions. What emerges is not a story about charity, but about infrastructure. Daily Bread operates at scale: forecasting demand, coordinating complex logistics, and increasingly using data to understand how food insecurity moves through the city. The result is a system that works—efficient, adaptive, and deeply embedded.

And that’s the tension.

Because the more effective food banks become, the easier it is for the broader system to depend on them. Housing costs rise, incomes stagnate, disability supports fall short—and the pressure flows downstream. Food banks absorb it. Quietly. Reliably. Permanently.

But beneath the operations is something less visible and more essential: care as culture. Not sentiment, but structure. The deliberate design of dignity, choice, and respect in how people access food and how communities participate in meeting that need. In a landscape defined by scarcity, culture becomes the operating system that keeps everything functioning.

This episode treats the food bank not as a solution, but as a signal. A lens into how policy failure is lived, managed, and, in some ways, normalized. It raises a harder question for anyone paying attention: if this is infrastructure now, what does that say about the system that made it necessary—and what would it take to build something different?

What happens when crop science becomes computational

In this episode, Jesse Hirsh sits down with Mohsen Yoosefzadeh Najafabadi, Assistant Professor at the University of Guelph, to explore the emergence of the computational breeder: a new kind of agricultural scientist working at the intersection of plant breeding, data science, and artificial intelligence.

Grounded in his work on dry beans, Mohsen walks through how breeding is evolving from a largely intuitive, experience-driven practice into a high-dimensional process shaped by genomics, phenomics, and multi-omics data. But this isn’t a story of replacement. It’s a story of integration—where traditional knowledge and computational tools begin to inform one another in new ways.

The conversation traces the shift from predictive models to generative and hybrid AI systems, including Mohsen’s development of BeanGPT, a tool designed to make complex agricultural knowledge more accessible to researchers, students, and practitioners alike. Along the way, they examine what it means to translate advanced research into real-world farming decisions—and why accessibility may be as important as innovation itself.

As climate pressures intensify and the demand for resilient crops grows, plant breeding is becoming one of the most critical—and least visible—sites of transformation in the food system. This episode offers a grounded look at how that transformation is unfolding, and who it’s ultimately for.

This is a conversation about seeds, systems, and the emerging intelligence shaping how we grow food.

Or are we just managing a system designed to waste

Canada produces more than enough food to feed everyone, yet millions remain food insecure while enormous volumes of perfectly good food are lost. In this conversation, Lori Nikkel, CEO of Second Harvest, reframes the issue away from scarcity and toward systems failure—how food is produced, priced, moved, and ultimately left behind.

What emerges is a picture of food rescue not as charity, but as infrastructure. Second Harvest operates a parallel supply chain, using data, logistics, and coordination to redirect surplus food to communities across the country. It is precise, efficient, and increasingly scalable. And yet, its very success raises a harder question: if we can move this much food, why does the need persist?

Lori draws a clear line between feeding people and solving food insecurity. Redistribution can address immediate need, but it does not resolve the structural conditions—poverty, policy gaps, market incentives—that produce both waste and hunger at the same time. The absence of a national strategy on food waste in Canada only deepens that contradiction.

This episode sits in that tension. It explores what becomes possible when waste is made visible and measurable, and what remains unchanged even as systems improve. The result is not a simple answer to the question of elimination, but a clearer understanding of what that question demands.

We explore how risk is managed in real time—across weather, markets, and rising input costs—and how those pressures move through a system that depends on coordination but rarely speaks with one voice. The discussion also looks at how policy travels from Ottawa into the province, and where it begins to lose coherence on the ground.

At its core, this is a conversation about representation: what it means to advocate for a diverse sector, how alignment is built (or strained), and what it takes to hold agriculture together as conditions keep shifting.

Who gets close enough to the industry to understand it? To see themselves in it? To be taken seriously before they’ve earned it on paper?

This episode moves away from abstract conversations about labour shortages and recruitment, and instead examines the everyday conditions that shape participation. The informal exposures, early invitations, and small acts of recognition that determine whether someone is brought in—or never considers agriculture at all.

What emerges is a quieter but more consequential reality: the future of the sector isn’t waiting to be filled. It’s already being shaped by who is allowed to get close.

Before innovation strategies, before policy frameworks, before the language of productivity and efficiency, there were communities that taught themselves. Learning was embedded in participation. People developed skills, judgment, and leadership by being part of something—by showing up, contributing, and gradually taking on more responsibility. It wasn’t formalized, and it didn’t need to be. It worked because it was shared.

Barb reflects on that world with clarity and precision, not as nostalgia, but as a way of understanding what has changed. Institutions once played a close, grounded role in translating knowledge into practice, helping people adapt to new tools, new techniques, and new realities. Today, those same processes feel more fragmented. Knowledge exists, but it doesn’t always travel. Innovation happens, but it doesn’t always land.

At the heart of this episode is a deeper question: how does a system reproduce itself? Not just economically, but socially—how it passes on knowledge, builds capacity, and creates the conditions for people to lead.

This is a conversation about culture as infrastructure. About informal learning as a form of coordination. About trust as something built over time, through proximity and shared experience.

And it’s about what happens when those systems thin out.

Because the future of agriculture will depend on more than technology or policy. It will depend on whether we can rebuild the environments where people learn together, take responsibility, and carry knowledge forward across generations.

In this episode:

• How informal learning shaped agricultural knowledge and leadership
• The role of community-based institutions in translating change into practice
• Why innovation often fails to land without shared context and trust
• Leadership as something grown through participation, not assigned
• What it means to rebuild the “hidden infrastructure” of farming today

If this episode resonates, share it with someone who is thinking about the future of agriculture—not just what we produce, but how we learn, adapt, and lead together.

In this episode of The Future Herd, I sit down with Treska Watson, who leads food security initiatives at The Mustard Seed Street Church in Victoria, BC. Treska operates on the front lines of a broken system, managing a food rescue programme that diverted 3.1 million pounds of food last year alone. But this isn't just a story about logistics—it's about dignity, collaboration, and reimagining what a food system rooted in hope could look like.

We unpack the paradox of abundance and hunger, explore why "best-before" dates are more suggestion than law (yes, that yogurt is probably fine), and dive into the innovative "Viewfield" food hub model where multiple organizations co-locate to share resources and ideas. Treska shares why she believes humans are "pack animals" who need each other, and why a choice-based food bank model changes everything for the communities they serve.

In this conversation, we cover:

• The Hope vs. Fear Framework: How to lead with hope even when the data is daunting.
• Food Rescue at Scale: The logistics of moving 3.1 million pounds of food to 65+ agencies.
• Dignity Over Charity: Why the "choice model" matters more than pre-packed hampers.
• Food Literacy: The truth about expiration dates, packaging waste, and consumer education.
• Collaboration as Leadership: How the Viewfield warehouse became a collision point for innovation.

Resources & Links:

• The Mustard Seed Street Church: mustardseed.ca
• The Future Herd: thefutureherd.ca
• Flourish School Food Society (mentioned in episode)
• South Island Farm Hub (mentioned in episode)

A Note on Sharing: If this conversation sparked something, don't keep it to yourself. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. You don't have to rescue 3.1 million pounds to make a difference—you just have to stay curious and pass it on.

This episode explores the space between what is grown and what is actually lived. Not in abstract terms, but in the practical realities of kitchens, habits, and identity. Raj makes a clear point—food doesn’t move because it exists. It moves when it belongs. When people recognize it, understand it, and know how to work with it in their own lives.

Her work sits inside that process. Through recipes, storytelling, and education, she translates between cultures and contexts—connecting Punjabi traditions with local ingredients and contemporary Canadian realities. In doing so, she’s not just sharing food. She’s shaping how culture adapts, and how agriculture finds relevance within it.

What emerges is a shift in how we think about the system itself. Culture is not downstream from agriculture. It is one of the primary forces that determines whether agriculture succeeds, scales, or stagnates.

This episode reframes food literacy as cultural participation, and leadership as the ability to shape meaning, not just output.

Key themes

1. Culture as a driver of demand and adoption
2. Why food has to “belong” to move
3. Diaspora cuisine as a bridge between local and global
4. Cooking as a form of cultural infrastructure
5. Rethinking leadership through culture, not just production

About the guest

Raj Thandhi is a chef, recipe developer, and food educator behind Pink Chai Living. Her work focuses on making Punjabi cooking accessible while integrating local ingredients and contemporary contexts. Through her recipes, writing, and digital platforms, she explores how food, culture, and place shape one another in everyday life.

https://pinkchailiving.com/

https://www.instagram.com/pinkchai/

In this episode of The Future Herd, Jesse Hirsh sits down with Todd Ormann of Olds College to explore why so many promising technologies struggle to reach the farm, and what it actually takes to close that gap.

From the role of applied research and Smart Farms to the fragmentation of Canada’s innovation system, this conversation unpacks the infrastructure behind real progress. Todd offers a grounded perspective on validation, trust, workforce development, and the institutions needed to translate ideas into practice.

This is a conversation about the work that happens after the breakthrough—and why it matters more than ever.

Key Themes

1. The gap between innovation and adoption in agriculture
2. The role of applied research institutions like Olds College
3. Smart Farms, data, and real-world validation
4. Workforce development and the future of agricultural skills
5. Rethinking Canada’s agri-food innovation system

Guest

Todd Ormann

Vice-President, External Relations & Research

Olds College of Agriculture & Technology

Host

Jesse Hirsh

The Future Herd

Links

1. Olds College of Agriculture & Technology: https://www.oldscollege.ca/
2. Learn more about The Future Herd: https://thefutureherd.ca/

Jamie Reaume has spent nearly three decades inside the conversations that shape Canadian agriculture. In this episode of Future Herd, he reflects on what that vantage point has taught him: why certain debates in the sector never seem to move forward, how institutional culture shapes decision-making, and why independent thinking remains essential if agriculture is going to navigate the decades ahead.

Early in the conversation Jamie describes himself plainly: a rebel, a radical, and a free thinker. That perspective drives a wide-ranging discussion about leadership, honesty inside the sector, and the tension between supporting agriculture and challenging the assumptions that hold it back.

This episode explores:

• Why dissent matters inside the agri-food sector

• The institutional habits that slow change in agriculture

• Leadership, independence, and the future of sector dialogue

• What it means to fight for a food system that is fair and resilient

If the Future Herd is about imagining leadership toward 2050, then voices like Jamie’s are essential — people willing to speak plainly about the path ahead.

In this episode of Future Herd, Jesse Hirsh speaks with Camden Lawrence of First Nations Agriculture & Finance Ontario. Camden works at the intersection of agricultural development, financing, and community capacity building, helping First Nations producers and communities explore agriculture not only as a pathway to food sovereignty, but also as a vehicle for economic growth and long-term prosperity.

Their conversation explores the structural realities of modern agriculture: the capital required to enter the sector, the importance of scale in supplying large buyers, and the institutional supports needed for communities to build viable agricultural enterprises. Camden also reflects on the momentum emerging across First Nations communities, where interest in agriculture is growing alongside efforts to develop the financing tools, partnerships, and leadership needed to support it.

This episode offers a thoughtful look at Indigenous agriculture as an evolving part of Canada’s agri-food landscape — and raises important questions about how the sector might grow in the years ahead.

Topics Discussed

1. The role of First Nations Agriculture & Finance Ontario
2. Indigenous agriculture and economic development
3. Financing challenges in agriculture
4. The economics of scale in modern food production
5. Community capacity and agricultural leadership
6. Food sovereignty and commercial agriculture
7. Opportunities for Indigenous participation in the broader agri-food sector

About the Guest

Camden Lawrence works with First Nations Agriculture & Finance Ontario, an Indigenous-led organization supporting agricultural and agribusiness development across First Nations communities in Ontario. The organization provides financing support, advisory services, and programs aimed at helping Indigenous producers and communities develop sustainable agricultural enterprises.

About Future Herd

Future Herd is a podcast exploring leadership across Canada’s agri-food sector as we think toward 2050. Through conversations with farmers, policymakers, researchers, and industry leaders, the show examines the ideas, institutions, and innovations shaping the future of food and agriculture.

Links

First Nations Agriculture & Finance Ontario

https://www.firstnationsag.ca

Future Herd

https://thefutureherd.ca

In this episode of Future Herd, Jesse Hirsh sits down with farm leader Steph Towers for a conversation about what leadership looks like in a sector facing uncertainty and transformation.

Steph reflects on how many agricultural leaders arrive in their roles not through deliberate ambition, but because someone needs to step up and do the work. From there, the discussion explores how curiosity, transparency, and emotional intelligence are becoming essential leadership skills in modern agriculture.

They discuss how farmers communicate with the public in the age of TikTok and Instagram, why lifelong learning is becoming a core leadership competency, and how stronger relationships — both within the sector and with the public — may be the most important foundation for agriculture’s future.

The conversation also touches on mental health in farming, the importance of collaboration across the sector, and why technology will never replace the human relationships that hold agricultural communities together.

If the future of agriculture depends on the quality of its leadership, this conversation offers an important glimpse into what that leadership might look like.

Key Themes

1. How farm leaders often emerge through necessity rather than ambition
2. Why curiosity can be more powerful than defensiveness in public conversations about agriculture
3. The role of emotional intelligence in modern agricultural leadership
4. How social media is reshaping trust between farmers and the public
5. Why relationships remain the foundation of agriculture’s future

About the Guest

Steph Towers is a farm leader and advocate who has taken on numerous leadership roles across agriculture, helping connect producers, organizations, and communities. Her work emphasizes collaboration, lifelong learning, and strengthening the relationships that underpin the agri-food sector.

Global trade is shifting. Geopolitics is intruding into supply chains. Food is no longer just food — it is leverage, resilience, and power.

In this episode of Future Herd, Jesse Hirsh sits down with Tyler McCann, Managing Director of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI), to explore what leadership looks like in a world where stability can no longer be assumed.

Together they examine:

1. Why the global context for Canadian agriculture has fundamentally changed
2. The discipline of focus in a sector overwhelmed by issues
3. How policy actually moves — and why convening matters
4. The cultural tendency toward incrementalism in Canadian agri-food governance
5. Why diversity of participation strengthens policy outcomes
6. The difference between a commodity sector and a strategic one
7. The urgent need to build domestic value-added capacity

Tyler draws on his experience inside federal government and now at CAPI to explain how coalitions form, how priorities get chosen, and where the real leverage points exist in shaping Canada’s agri-food future.

At the heart of the conversation is a simple but consequential question:

Does Canada treat agri-food as a strategic sector — or as a commodity engine navigating price cycles?

In an era of geopolitical volatility, that distinction matters.

About the Guest

Tyler McCann is the Managing Director of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI), an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to advancing policy solutions for Canada’s agri-food system. He previously served in senior advisory roles within the federal government and operates a farm in western Quebec.

About Future Herd

Future Herd is a podcast exploring leadership, strategy, and structural change across Canada’s agri-food sector. We focus on systems, policy, innovation, and the people shaping the future of food.

If this conversation resonates, share it within your network and continue the discussion inside your organization. The future of Canadian agri-food will not arrive on its own — it will be organized.

In this episode of The Future Herd, Jesse Hirsh sits down with Dana McCauley — chef-turned-strategist, former food manufacturing executive, and one of Canada’s most influential food innovation leaders. Dana’s career spans fine dining, food media, corporate leadership, and national ecosystem development. Few people understand as clearly how ideas move from kitchens to factories to global markets.

Together, they explore:

• Why food innovation is as much about culture as it is about technology

• The hard realities of commercialization in Canada

• What scaling a food business really demands

• Why mentorship and knowledge-sharing are critical infrastructure

• How Canada can build a more coordinated, competitive agri-food sector

This is a conversation about systems — and the people who quietly build them.

If you work in food, agriculture, manufacturing, research, or policy, this episode offers a grounded look at what it actually takes to turn ambition into durable industry.

About The Future Herd:

The Future Herd explores leadership, coordination, and foresight in Canadian agri-food. We speak with the builders shaping the next generation of food and farming.

Subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of innovation, agriculture, and authority.

At a time when climate volatility, technological disruption, and political short-termism are redefining the operating environment for farmers and institutions alike, what responsibilities do academic leaders carry? And how can universities foster the collaboration, interdisciplinary research, and entrepreneurial energy required to build a more resilient food system?

Van Acker reflects on the University of Guelph’s agricultural heritage and its culture of practical engagement—where research is designed not just to generate knowledge, but to put that knowledge into action. The conversation explores the importance of extension and public engagement, the power of cross-sector collaboration, and the growing role of students as drivers of innovation.

The discussion also confronts climate change directly. While political rhetoric may fluctuate, farmers are experiencing increasing weather volatility firsthand. The challenge for institutions is to embed long-term foresight into planning processes that often default to short-term thinking.

This episode is a thoughtful exploration of leadership, institutional responsibility, and generational momentum in the agri-food sector.

In this episode, we discuss:

1. Why collaboration is foundational to long-term agricultural resilience
2. The evolving role of extension and knowledge mobilization
3. Interdisciplinary research and entrepreneurialism in agri-food
4. Leadership as the creation of “open space” for new futures
5. Students as engines of innovation and transformation
6. Climate volatility as the defining foresight challenge

About The Future Herd

The Future Herd is a podcast about collaboration and leadership in a changing food system. Each episode features conversations with leaders, innovators, and thinkers shaping the future of agriculture and food.

They discuss the growing importance of micro-credentials, upskilling and reskilling the existing workforce, and hybrid training models that meet people where they are—from farms to living rooms. The episode also tackles a persistent challenge in future-focused work: how to move from conversation to action, and how short-term deliverables and shared accountability can sustain momentum toward 2030 and 2050.

At its core, this is a conversation about people—how we prepare them, how we support them through change, and how collaboration becomes the infrastructure that allows a sector to move forward together.

In this episode of The Future Herd, Jesse Hirsh is joined by Ruth Knight, director with the Agriculture Adaptation Council and chair of the Agri-Food 2050 committee, for a wide-ranging conversation on foresight, leadership, and cultural transformation in agriculture.

Rather than treating the future as something to be predicted or controlled, Ruth argues that future readiness is a mindset—one rooted in curiosity, patience, dialogue, and imagination. Together, they explore why resilience emerges from conversation rather than consensus, how play and experimentation can unlock innovation, and why engaging younger generations is essential to the long-term health of the agri-food system.

This episode examines the tension between problem-solving and big-picture thinking, the limits of top-down planning, and the need to shift from systems of control toward systems of emergence. At its core, the conversation asks how leaders can create the conditions for adaptation, learning, and collaboration over the next 25 years.

Topics Covered

1. Why foresight is a practice, not a prediction
2. Curiosity and patience as leadership strengths
3. Dialogue versus debate in sector-wide planning
4. Play, imagination, and safe experimentation
5. Intergenerational leadership and youth engagement
6. From control to emergence in agri-food systems
7. Building cultural capacity for long-term resilience

Guest

Ruth Knight

Director, Agriculture Adaptation Council

Chair, Agri-Food 2050 Committee

Independent Agronomist and Rural Development Consultant

About the Podcast

The Future Herd explores leadership, collaboration, and long-term thinking in agriculture and food systems. Through conversations with sector leaders, policymakers, producers, and innovators, the podcast examines how we adapt together in an era of uncertainty.

Food systems are changing faster than most of our institutions can keep up.

The Future Herd is a podcast about understanding where our food actually comes from—how it’s grown, governed, financed, regulated, and lived with—and what it will take to adapt together in the decades ahead.

Hosted by Jesse Hirsh, the show explores leadership through collaboration across agriculture, policy, technology, labour, and climate. Rather than treating food as a sector to be optimized, The Future Herd treats it as infrastructure: ecological, social, economic, and political.

Season One is developed in alignment with the Agri-Food 2050 process, a long-term effort to think beyond short political and market cycles and toward the resilience of Canada’s food system over the next generation. The show’s founding partner is the Agricultural Adaptation Council, whose role is to create space for experimentation, dialogue, and collaboration across parts of the system that rarely speak to each other. Additional partners and perspectives are welcome.

This introductory episode sets the foundation for the season by introducing the core idea behind the “future herd”: food systems are made up of many independent actors—farmers, animals, ecosystems, institutions, technologies, and communities—coordinating without central control. Adaptation emerges from interaction, not command.

Across Season One, conversations return to a set of recurring themes, including long-term thinking and the meaning of 2050, interacting drivers of change, labour and the future of work, climate resilience, digital infrastructure and AI, public trust and narrative, equity and inclusion, governance as coordination, lived experience from the frontlines, and the persistent gap between vision and action.

The Future Herd is for farmers, producers, policymakers, technologists, and anyone who eats—and wants to better understand the system they depend on.