One of the most prominent businessmen in agriculture has challenged business leaders and farmers to take their operation to the next level.
AGT Foods president & CEO and 2017 World Entrepreneur of the Year Murad Al-Katib was the guest speaker of the Swift Current & District Chamber of Commerce’s Farmer Appreciation Night on Friday.
"In Southwest Saskatchewan we have a tremendous base of production, adverse conditions, pretty dry, but a great three crop rotation working here," he said. "Big size farms, technological innovation is high in this area, and now I think there's a real opportunity to take that to the next level. Bring more technology on to our farms, get more of the acres, and more value then the crops we are producing. That's the message I wanted to give today."
Al-Katib added he sees around 11 billion dollars of growth over the next decade just by raising production on the farm, along with another 20 billion in value-added growth.
Al-Katib told the crowd that they need to get more out of their production and incorporate more technology to take their business to the next level.
"Food traceability, supply chain traceability, sustainability of agriculture, these kids are going to demand to know where that food product came from," he said. They want to know it all the way to the farm. Which bin it went into, which truck it went into, which factory it went to, where did that ingredient go, how many went together, what's the water use of the production of that product, those are things we are going to get ready for. I think in southwest Saskatchewan we got an ecosystem where we can really extract some value."
Al-Katib adds he’s excited about the Protein Innovation Supercluster that was recently announced for southern Saskatchewan and the potential it could also have for the southwest.
He says dry growing conditions in the region have led to higher protein content in crops compared to those grown in other areas.
Source : Discoverestevan