Agriculture is navigating a period of rapid change. Markets shift quickly, public conversations about food are shaped by social media, and the next generation of farm leaders is stepping into roles that previous generations never had to imagine.

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.

Hi, I'm Jesse Hirsh.

Welcome to The Future Herd.

In this episode, I'm joined by my new friend, Steph Towers, for

a fantastic, passionate, wide ranging conversation about the kind

of leadership we need right now.

Steph brings a people first lens to agriculture that's both

practical and quietly radical.

We talk about how real leadership often isn't something you chase,

it's something you step into because the work needs doing.

We explore the habits that make that possible.

Lifelong learning, the courage to say we don't know yet, and the ability to hold

uncertainty without trying to control it.

A big thread running through this conversation is trust Steph

named something I think a lot of leaders are still missing.

In a world where producers and the public are getting their information from TikTok

X, Instagram, some even Facebook Trust doesn't come from sounding confident.

It comes from being clear, from being transparent about what you know, what

you don't, and what you're gonna do next.

Steph also shares a vivid example from the tariff era anxiety now shaping export

dependent sectors and why curiosity and empathy can deescalate fear faster

than any communication strategy ever.

Will we get into a motion as a leadership asset, not a liability,

and how the culture of granite and Barrett is colliding with a

growing necessary openness about mental health and agriculture.

If you care about the future of AgriFood leadership in Canada, or if

you just wanna watch a future Prime Minister come into being, you gotta

learn about my friend Steph Towers and the phenomenal work that she's doing.

Hi, Steph Towers.

Welcome to The Future Herd.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: Hi.

It's great to be here.

I am so excited to have a conversation with you about the future herd,

the future of agriculture.

Now I will, uh, uh, state, uh, from a process perspective that

when we announced this on LinkedIn, you were one of the first people to

kind of connect with me, and I was so grateful because as soon as you did,

I was like, this is exactly the kind of person I want to be talking to.

Um, so thank you very much for accepting my invitation, and

I love starting our chats with what does the future mean to you?

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: Ooh, wow.

We're just gonna get right in there and pull it out.

So for me I've grown up in ag, I've been in this, in, in around

different sectors for my entire life.

And the future for me is all about blending those past traditions with

all of the technology and all the information that's coming forward.

think when you really get down to it, the future of agriculture for me is in

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Right on.

Right on.

And, and from that people perspective, how did you become a leader, uh, so to,

to project so easily and so effortlessly?

Uh, I, I'm not a fan of the phrase natural born leaders.

I, I don't think such things exist, but you're close in the sense that

you've kind of been playing with leadership since you've been playing.

Um, so gimme some insight as to how that happened.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: Wow.

That's a huge praise.

I'm not sure that I even would consider myself a leader traditional

metrics, I think for me it's about trying to make a difference.

It's seeing something that you're passionate about and that you feel

strongly about and wanting to be part of change and change for the better, not

just for yourself, but for those around you and for the industry as a whole.

Throughout my life, I have taken on, leadership positions, not.

on purpose, but because someone needed to step up and do the work.

And that has been really empowering.

I think to the commitment to lifelong learning.

I'm a big believer that you have to be learning something new every day.

It's part of why we're here, and it is so rewarding to continually learn and

to be able to put that into practise.

But at the heart of it, it just comes back to wanting better for myself,

my family, and the people around me.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Preach.

Preach sister.

And I say this because as I suspect, learning is my through line as well.

It's presently why I'm waking up so excited and happy because I'm currently

in the midst of a big learning project.

But I have to ask.

'cause a, I don't think I was praising you when I called out your

extensive experience as a leader.

It's really from my perspective, showing respect.

But I'm curious, like who were your influences?

Were your parents kind of leaders themselves?

Were there people in your community that you looked up to

and you're like, wow, they're cool.

I want to do that too.

'cause you take for granted the idea that if there's a problem,

someone's gotta solve it.

Or, we need people to be focusing on impact.

And bringing people together.

And to your point, bringing.

People together.

So before we get into the real nuts and bolts of our current

sector, what were those influences?

Who inspired you when you were younger to be as courageous as you are?

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: So I grew up in a small farming community.

We had hogs so far to finish.

My dad was wildly influential in my life.

He and my grandparents, as well as my aunts and uncles were

very involved in community.

So whether that was local hockey, local baseball, if there was something that

we were involved in as kids, and even if it was something we weren't involved in.

But they needed someone to step up and coach or be the trainer or fill

that spot so that kids could play.

was it he was the president of the Minor Ball Association, and both my

brother and I, on multiple occasions as teenagers were volatile that we

would be coaching because he needed coaches to be able to run that team.

But, there are 15, 20 kids depending on somebody coaching, and the result was

going to be that the teams would fold.

So I think from a young age, we were just brought up to believe that community is

incredibly important and collaboration is incredibly important, and that when

you treat the people around you with respect and invest your time and your

talents, that comes back and it comes back tenfold in the community that you

live in the relationships that you build and you know who you are as a person.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: That, that makes a lot of sense to me.

And, and it, it helps give me the larger context as to where your passion, your,

your infectious energy comes from.

But, but let me ask you a, a a potentially controversial question.

'cause when you talked about people-centric agriculture, you sort of

inferred that it, it's something we need.

It's something that hasn't always been there.

But you also just described your sense of community in

which that's a constant, right?

That that's something that is just you're voluntold to be part of.

So what happened?

'cause, because I think there's a story there, I think there's a disconnect where

we did use to have vibrant communities where that responsibility to help each

other out was part of the social fabric.

But to your point, it's not the language we're always using.

It's not the culture that we're always emphasising.

So before we get into how to bring that back, I'm curious, Steph, from

your perspective, how did that happen?

Where, where did we make a wrong turn?

There

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: Wow.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Real early on these episodes?

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: fast here.

So it's a fantastic question and I don't know that there's a single

answer to it because I think a lot of that fabric does still exist.

You see it in rural communities, if there's a barn, fire neighbours

stepping up and going to get cattle and making sure everybody's taken care of.

You see it if there's a fundraiser for someone that's sick in the community.

So I think we still do have that foundational sense of

community, but I think that.

moved away from it.

There's so many relationships now that are online and it's not necessarily

a bad thing, but it's different.

It's, thinking that you are following someone and you have that relationship

with them, but it's really one sided.

And so I think that as we have shrunk in the agricultural community, we're

losing farms every day for consolidation reasons and all sorts of things.

We're so focused on efficiencies and outputs that we have maybe,

and not all the time, but we have lost the focus on people first.

We're concerned with margins and we have to be right.

farming is a business, and it's critically important to be able

to stay afloat, to be focused on margins and throughput and output.

But when we focus on that at the expense of our relationships.

It brings us down.

And I think that's, that kind of merging technology and things changing so

much more rapidly than they used to.

That's all at the centre of it, where the ballpark and church and community

dinners, those used to be the places that you got your information.

you click on Instagram or Facebook and you pull up your local community

page and you've got everything right at your fingertips without

ever having to leave the house.

And so this focus on efficiencies and, not taking the hour to go to the

community barbecue, I think that it is detrimental and it's not on purpose

and it's not necessarily something that we realise we've been doing.

But when you look back, we've definitely lost some of that interconnectedness.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Well, and, and I think not only is

that a brilliant insight, but it it speaks to the perspective that leaders

can have to address these problems.

Because, you know, if, if I can try to express it as a metaphor, on the one

hand, I think you accurately described that at the grassroots, that spirit

is still there, it's still active.

There still is a real strong commitment to community.

But when you scale the institutions up you lose some of those circuits.

So we maintain the circuits around sustainable business practises.

We maintain some of the circuits around, say, sharing agronomy.

Knowledge or sharing, you know, tractor knowledge, but people knowledge we've

lost and that social knowledge we've lost.

So as a leader, how do we do that?

How do we take those circuits that are still active in the community and

reintegrate them into our institutions?

'cause I, I'm hypothesising that's part of what you are

trying to do as a leader, right?

Is sort of see it from both angles.

You grew up in the grassroots and you know the value that's there,

but you're also identifying in, in the institutions that there's a gap.

There's something missing here that we need to reintegrate and extend.

And am I, am I gring you?

Am I understanding you correctly?

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: yes.

You summarised it far more eloquently than I could.

Absolutely.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: what are your thoughts on, on execution?

Right on.

And obviously it's not something one single leader can do.

We're talking about culture, right?

It takes a, a, a many hands to lighten the load.

But, but tell me more as to how you've approached this

problem and how you're trying to communicate this to other leaders.

'cause to me, it's self-evident to me.

I'm like, yeah, preach, but I suspect not everyone else is as open to these

ideas or in their defence, they, they just can't translate how obvious this is.

The way that bottom line, for example, is an obvious consideration

for pe for people to keep in mind.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: For sure.

So for me it is approaching everything as people First leadership.

It's all about empowering people to be them, be their best selves, to

be able to show up, to contribute, to bring ideas forward that we

wouldn't necessarily have if we just act as our management team alone.

So traditionally, leadership has been about control.

especially within the agricultural community, we were looking to academia,

we were looking to our commodity boards.

We were looking to, the government for the information on what we needed to do next.

So that leadership model was really rooted control and being able

to deliver a confident message.

So you were the only source of information or maybe one of two sources of information

that farmers and community had.

So it was really important to be very clear on your messaging,

be very concise and right?

Even if that message was maybe missing a few were changing a lot slower.

So the rate of change, the market swings, all of those things, if you look back

30, 40 years, were at such a slower pace that it was easy for leadership

to thrive with a control mentality.

Now that's wildly different.

People aren't relying on information sessions from their commodity boards.

They're not relying on the news releases that come out three

months late by the government.

They're going to social media, they're going to TikTok, they're

going to X, they're going to Instagram, they're going to Facebook.

And so they already have opinions on what's going on.

when you go into a meeting and people have questions, if that leadership model is

control, and that narrative doesn't match the information that people have already

accessed, and no balance, there's no give and take, it erodes trust really fast.

People aren't looking for confidence anymore.

They're looking for clarity.

They want to understand what decisions are being made, why

they're looking for transparency.

They're looking for their leaders to be that beacon of

light through that huge mass of information that they've collected.

They want their leadership to say, Hey, this is what's going on.

This is what we know now.

This is where we're at.

It's okay to not know the things that we don't know.

And it is definitely okay to communicate that to, to your base, to the people

that are looking to you for answers.

There's a lot more credibility in transparency and clarity than

there is in control or having a perfectly polished narrative.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: absolutely brilliant.

You're knocking every one of these out of the park.

It's truly impressive.

So I gotta now throw the, is a real hardball pitch.

And I'll do it in a way that I'll give you a fork in the road so you

can hedge yourself accordingly.

I think the trust issue, as you just outlined it, is the issue fundamentally

that everything else flows from there.

I do want to talk policy, but before our episode here is done, but I want

you to double down on that trust piece and the fork in the road is,

I'd love to hear some examples that you think demonstrate this new model

of leadership that earns trust in the media environment that you describe.

And alternatively, if you wanna go there.

What are the leadership practises that are so ludicrously outdated

that they are hurting the leadership of those organisations?

'cause they're trying to control something they can't control and consequently

are losing a trust by the bucket load.

Again I don't want you to get into trouble, but I think you've hit the

crux of the matter when it comes to the crisis of leadership in our sector

that your view, as brilliant as it is not as widely held as it should be.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: Wow.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, let's do it.

Let's do it.

Okay.

So one of the best examples that I have seen recently was an organisation

that when Trump came into power, there were a lot of discussions

on tariffs and what that means for our predominantly export market.

And this commodity group had a, their CEO hold a press conference and say, listen,

don't know this is gonna affect us.

don't know when it's coming in.

we do know is that we are a really strong industry.

What we do know is that we have really great senior staff.

What we do know is that we are going to fight to protect this industry and

to ensure that Canada remains a global leader in the export for this commodity.

And it did amazing.

Thanks.

Their membership base was behind them.

There was a confidence there.

There was, you could see the unrest in the room had dissipated, right?

Because people seen, felt heard, they felt like they mattered, and

that this organisation was really listening to their concerns.

And, there, there were some follow up questions that were pretty

aggressive this CEO was able to redirect and just say, I hear you.

I hear you.

you tell me more about that?

And just leading with that curiosity about.

Why there's a problem if your membership base or your consumers, whatever

you're dealing with, or if it's on the family farm, you know your next

generation if they're coming to you and they're mad, do you know why?

Because you probably don't.

That is one thing that I think is really undervalued as a, you talk about

leadership characteristics, curiosity.

Curiosity is one of the most underrated leadership skill and you can

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Mm-hmm.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: have to be born with it.

You can absolutely learn it.

It's that step back pause for two or three seconds and say, what do you mean by that?

And after asking that a few times, you got down to it.

And this particular question that was very aggressive, got down to

this young farmer, was concerned about the debt load he had taken on.

He wasn't sure with.

If borders were gonna be shut down, he wasn't sure he was

gonna be able to make payments.

That CEO said I really empathise with that.

We have some loan agreements with banks.

Let me get you in touch with some people.

And just that understanding of where that frustration was coming

from completely disarmed that room.

So it was just something that was unbelievably well done.

And the really interesting part about it was he didn't have any answers for them.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Yeah.

And it really brings to the foreground an element of leadership that I think

many people take for granted, but you just demonstrated is kind of central to

the trust exercise, which is emotion.

And I would argue that the AgriFood sector more than any other

industry, emotion is part of it.

Farmers are very emotional about their work.

Food processors are, entrepreneurs are very emotional about their work.

And whether it's, uh, decision making or policy, they often becomes emotional.

What role does that emotion play?

Like?

'cause on the one hand, you, you, you talked about emotional

composure, emotional literacy, emotional vulnerability, right?

Like there's different layers to that, but it's also evoking a model

of leadership that acknowledges.

Uncertainty that acknowledges things you can't control.

Again, we're really getting into the weeds here, but I, I'm curious to

hear your thoughts as, as someone who you know, to, to your earlier Mark,

you've seen multiple generations of leadership, both in terms of people you've

collaborated with, but also in terms of the people that you've grown up watching.

How is our understanding of emotion and leadership changing and, and are we

at a point where we can talk about it?

The way you talked about some of the skills that one can acquire when, when

one aspires to be a better leader.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: I think we're getting there.

I really do.

I think that there is movement towards accepting all of those

emotional components as fundamental to connecting with people.

So having emotional intelligence, being able to read someone, being able to

understand, oh, this person's behavior's off from, a couple days ago or a couple

weeks ago, or this person's work is declining, and being able to step back

and say, okay, this isn't typical of them.

What's actually going on here?

You know that I think we are approaching a place where we can talk about it more.

I think that with the movement towards more acknowledgement of mental health

in agriculture, that we're slowly seeing an acceptance of looking

at things differently and not just at put your head down and grin and

bear it because there's work to do.

Those it's hard though because those are foundations that agriculture's

really built on that pull your bootstraps up and just get it done.

So it's gonna take time and it's going to take people who are really invested

in empowering people and leading with compassion because it does so much

for your company culture and it does so much for the members of your team.

To be able to have them comfortable, to ask hard questions, comfortable

to voice their opinions, and comfortable to say Hey I'm not okay.

And those things ultimately will positively affect your bottom line.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Well, and, and let's use that as a

way to kind of tie in the, the meeting spaces and the media that kind of

create the culture of agriculture.

'cause on the one hand, you know, we're, we're having this conversation early

March, and this is, you know, the winter is often the season of ag events, right?

When people really come together.

And I think that's part of how the mental health issues have been normalised

and de-stigmatized is because at these events, I think a, there's a lot of

opportunity to talk about these issues, but when you're hanging out together,

it's easier to be, are you okay?

And, and to have that conversation.

But the other side of this, of course, is media and the fact that people

are in their tractor, you know, in their, uh, uh, barn using social

media to connect with other people, to share knowledge with other people.

I, I do wanna talk about that in the larger context of leadership, but I want

to start with the mental health side.

To what extent can our events and can our media provide the kind of emotional,

the kind of community support that we started our conversation with, right?

That we used to live in this world and many of us still do, where the

community took care of each other.

How is media, how is the internet?

How are our events rising to that challenge or failing to do so, right?

Because I am the kind of person who sees the through line between our

mental health, our sense of wellbeing, and the culture that makes us say,

Hey, yeah, I'm a farmer and I'm proud.

And it strikes me that our events in media help make that happen.

I can't ask this question to most of the guests who'd come on this show, but

Steph, I think that you've been thinking about these topics in a way that could,

uh, again, give you an opportunity to demonstrate your brilliance.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: so to lead off, I am going to say I

am in no way a mental health expert whatsoever, but I'm really fortunate to

be very close friends with a number of people who are, and we have seen such

great strides in Canada over the last five years on having multiple avenues

for farmers to be able to reach out.

We have some brilliant programming on teaching on the ground.

so sales staff that's in and out of farms and identifying some signs,

excuse me on the farm sales staff to identify signs that someone's not, okay.

So does the barn look messier?

Is the tractor not taken care of?

And teaching them ways to approach these, issues and not actually

just brush it under the rug.

So I think there's an amazing education element that is popping up at a tonne

of different meetings, a tonne of different organisations, and there's

also legitimate support as well.

So whether it's in the form of therapy that you can access,

whether it's a form of a crisis line or something like meditation.

Apps that you can use while you're in the field or in the barn.

So I think that we have made some really good strides in integrating that

into our meeting spaces and working to de-stigmatize mental health in general.

There's still a lot of work to be done, but man, we have

some phenomenal organisations in Canada that help with that.

Yeah,

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Right on.

And I appreciate that A, you're not only game to come on a crazy podcast

like this, but you're able to handle the crazy conversational twists and turns

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: it's

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: that my, uh, uh, autistic a DH brain takes us on.

Because I, I wanted to talk to you about events in particular because

I hypothesise that who we look to as leaders is almost, at least historically,

has been a direct reflection as to how our events are constructed.

Like, who has charisma?

Who ha has the best speaking skills, who knows the right people in the room?

You know, I, I, I've been going to events long enough to realise that

that's where politics happens, right?

That's where, you know, power happens.

'cause that's where people connect and trust and, and see with each other.

So I would love to hear your thoughts on the role that events play, both in

facilitating the practise of leader.

But I think more importantly, how could we change our events to get more and

newer and different leaders who, uh, will help bring different perspectives, right?

Will help bring new, vibrant energy.

Because while I would love to believe staff that there are a million others like

you, you are an exception to the rule.

And clearly your parents were phenomenal leaders unto themselves.

But how do we get more people like us playing the game and having fun?

And what role do you think events play in, in facilitating that?

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: Oh, so this is a topic that

is near and dear to my heart.

I think.

Engagement is something that I am unbelievably passionate about because

I think, unfortunately, for a lot of organisations, not just within ag, we take

and we turn it into acceptance,

right?

You have a meeting and you only have a few people show up and it

says, oh everybody must be happy.

Are they happy or are they disengaged?

Because those are two very different things, right?

for me, meetings have to provide something of value.

And you'll see that with different leadership styles.

So if you have a leader who is still operating under the control model trying

to control the narrative, operating in a way that's, comes from a form

of authoritarian style of leadership.

It won't be very interactive.

It's going to be a lot of being talked to.

it, the information is probably great, not saying that at all.

But there will be very limited opportunity for dialogue.

There will be very limited opportunity for engagement and for providing feedback

to people or for building skills.

the best events that I have seen come from leaders who really value feedback.

Where there are open question periods, there are round table discussions

with senior staff or board members.

There are ample opportunities conversation to happen amongst participants.

It's not just a classroom style.

You're there for six hours and, okay, see you later.

I am a firm believer that some of the best conversations happen in the hallways.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Mm-hmm.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: So we need the meetings to provide the

information, but we also need the meetings to provide the space for that

reflection, that conversation, and that feedback to occur because the best

meetings create conversations that last.

So it's all going back to that leadership style of collaboration and curiosity,

and really valuing the input from your attendees instead of seeing it as well.

This is an information gathering event.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Right on.

And this is where I get to, uh, do the aspirational part of the podcast

and say maybe one day we'll have an opportunity to do some kind of future

herd leadership event where we do an event configuration that's completely original.

Um, but back to the main subject, I, I personally think that food

at any ag related event needs to be so spectacular that people are

like, oh my God, that was amazing.

You said something very powerful there that, that really kind of triggered an

emotional reaction to me, which was this idea that disengagement is complacency or

that disengagement is satisfaction and.

Granted it, it's one of those things obvious in hindsight but when you said it,

you, it's like, I felt punched in the gut.

'cause this is where I wanna shift to policy.

'cause to me one of the big complacent elements of disengagement within policy is

this idea that Canadians don't know where their food comes from and they never will.

Versus, I see that as disengagement and I see that as something

we absolutely must address.

'cause if we don't, our problems are only gonna worse.

So allow me to use that as a hook to say why do you think policy engagement

is important and, and as part of your travels, uh, both within the

leadership realm, but also perhaps engaging with folks who, who are new to

leadership, who are new to policy to.

Eh, what are the prejudices?

What are the obstacles?

I, I'm someone who thinks that policy's like a playground

where you can have lots of fun.

How, what has your experience been, both yourself engaging the policy

environment, but also trying to get other people to engage the policy environment?

'cause correct me if I'm wrong, it also suffers from a high rate of disengagement.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: Yeah,

so policy is something I am very passionate about as well.

when it comes to.

Saying, people don't need know where their food comes from

and we need to educate them.

I'm gonna push back on you a little bit on that one, because I think

this notion that we have created in ag of consumers need to be educated.

Ah, yes.

But also, no.

consumers necessarily wrong.

They're just not you.

So

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: And I.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: with having this mentality that

it's, we're gonna tell them and we're gonna educate them and show

them where their food comes from.

It really creates a point of friction, I would say, where we're positioning

ourselves as someone superior.

To the people that are consuming the products that we produce.

I am unbelievably proud to be in agriculture.

I think it is amazing the high quality food that we can produce

in Canada and export to the world.

We are a global treasure when it comes to AgriFood and food production, but

I think the thing we sometimes take for granted in agriculture is that

we are also lucky to have people choose to put us on their plate.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: So I,

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: It is,

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: I wanna double down on this and,

and I wanna flag that I do want to come back to policy engagement and

getting people en engaged in policy.

But I think you're making a really, really smart point here.

And I want you to kind of unpack it a little.

Give me an example.

Give me an example.

'cause I think you're right.

I think on the one hand, every industry likes to assume that it's

superior and no one understands them.

Boo hoo hoo.

And, and sometimes that leads to a false sense of, of we know and they don't.

But is there an example, however vague of something that the ag industry resents

that the public is doing that regardless of the public's motivation, that's cool.

They could do that.

'cause we live in a free society, right?

Because that, that is, I think the larger context here in terms of we

gotta let people think for themselves.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: We absolutely

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: And I,

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: think me, the one that seems to hit the hardest

is people that are very passionate about their choice to not consume meat.

That is always a big one.

And what I would say is we are really fortunate to live where we do that.

We have so much food choice and I am never going to tell someone what they

should or shouldn't put on their plate.

Food is such an intimate.

Decision and such an intimate relationship that all we can do is

we can produce it, we can provide it and appreciate those people that

do choose to consume our products.

That being said, there's a portion of people in the middle for general

consumers that we'll call them movable middle, more information may help them.

They want to be like they are doing something good.

It goes back to that emotion,

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: yes.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: They want to feel like the decisions that

they're making for their plate and their family are the right decisions.

They wanna know that what you are doing isn't going to

hurt them or their families.

They wanna know that they can support Canadian and feel good about that choice.

It all comes back to is the choice they're making for the food on their

plate, something they feel good about.

And the movable metal are people that generally are curious.

They want more information.

They're looking for that information.

open to having really constructive conversations.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: See, I, I, I, I'm, I gotta, I gotta interrupt

just, just to throw another curve ball at you 'cause I'm loving this 'cause I

rarely get to talk to someone who has both ag literacy and media literacy, right?

Because you understand both a, where the food comes from, but you also understand

where people get their perceptions from and where their emotions from.

And I love how you're evoking the middle 'cause it is a kind of swing vote, right?

And that they are being informed and influenced by all these different factors.

'cause here, here's where I as a farmer, react emotionally and, and

I suspect this is similar to others, while I absolutely, uh, support

someone's right to never eat meat.

I have a real problem when they say that beef is responsible

for global warming, right?

Or when they like, 'cause on the one hand, if it is about personal

diet and nutrition, go nuts.

Eat whatever you want.

But when it gets into the realm of policy where they're not just talking about what

they put on their plate, they're deciding.

Like, for example, here, here, here's another thing that I'll admit, I'm,

I'm still wrapping my head around.

So what I'm about to say may be unformed, but I believe an important

policy for farmers in Canada is increased rail infrastructure.

Like everything I'm seeing from grain farmers to, like everybody

across the country, we need to get our products to the market fast.

And the bottleneck year after year is railways.

But right now here in an eastern Ontario, there's a revolt going

on against high speed rail and everybody's going real bad, real bad.

And again.

If these are different debates, fine.

But the problem is it's never just about what we eat.

It's always about our worldview.

It's always about our larger morals, and it always ties into policy as a whole.

And that's where I think it's difficult for us, either as policy people or as

human beings who have passionate issues about stuff, to find that nuanced middle.

So to bring it back to policy, how do we get more people seeing policy

debates as something that are worth having rather than, I think when people

get overwhelmed, they just go policy bad, rather than thinking that policy

is wide enough for all sorts of views.

And the goal is to find.

The middle to find something that we can all kind of agree on.

I'm rambling, but I rarely have the opportunity with someone with

your expertise and intelligence.

So please step, help me figure this stuff out.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: So what I would say with policy

is that agriculture in Canada, our numbers are shrinking, right?

There's just, there's no way around it.

And we don't have the luxury anymore of saying, oh someone else will do it.

We have to do it.

And the thing about farmers and AgriFood in general is that we're really good

at telling our story each other.

We're great.

We'll pat ourselves on the back all day in a meeting room of, you and me and

Oh, we did so great last year and we did all these things, our narrative very

rarely makes it outside of our silos.

So agriculture in general, still very much operates in silos.

So you identify, oh I'm a dairy producer.

I'm a beef producer.

I'm a grain farmer.

We haven't.

Made these steps.

It's getting better, but we really haven't taken the steps we need to

deconstruct those silos and work together as an agricultural industry.

you said, trying to flush out those commonalities of getting

products to port faster.

Our port infrastructure is crumbling, which is absolutely essential for

our export markets figuring out the things that we do well together that

we all need, and really advocating for government as one voice.

That's not to say that you have to dismiss your concerns that are industry

specific, but you can attack those one-on-one with meetings with MPS

and PPS and your local counsellors.

But if we could find commonality and collaboration on some of the

key infrastructure messaging to government about helping to secure

Canada, not only our food sovereignty, but to position ourselves as a

global leader in food and AgriFood export, that would be unbelievable.

One of the.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: No, please go ahead.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: One of the biggest things I hear

when I speak to mps and PPS is that there's so many messages coming from

agriculture, sometimes conflicting, that it's a lot easier for them to throw

up their hands and go, I don't know, once you guys agree, come back to me.

I guess I'm not sure, because they can't reasonably take any action when they

have three voices, four and three voices against, and so what happens is we get

stuck in this situation where we're having trouble getting any policy put forward.

Where in agriculture, I think we can agree on some pretty fundamental things.

Less red tape is essential for investment in processing and infrastructure, better

investment into ports, transportation, better investment into rural communities.

There's so many things that are fundamental that we all agree on,

that if we could align our voices and have that collaboration, we could.

Really make some waves in terms of policy and communicating with

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: and I want to dig deeper into that

point of a kind of unified voice.

'cause, 'cause that is something I'm hearing right across the board.

And, and I think that to your point about the reducing numbers, uh, of farmers, it

makes that even more important, right?

That kind of coalition of the willing, for lack of a better phrase, can focus itself.

And, and I wanna return to that, but because you have such a high level of

media literacy, uh, I, I, I want to devil devil's advocate something I've

been working through on my, on my own.

'cause like yourself, I have often when given the opportunity, told

people we need better stories and we gotta work on our storytelling skills.

And, you know, narrative is really the, the, the force of power in

the media environment we live in.

But you know, in the last few weeks I've started coming to a slightly different

conclusion that storytelling isn't enough.

It's a battle.

It's a battle of ideas and whether we want it to be or not.

You know, like Twitter of 2010 is dead and X of 2026 is a battle royale.

And while on the one hand we should be united in these battles, right,

so that we're not fighting each other there, there is kind of like

it's no longer, here's my story.

Everybody listen.

It's kind of like elbows up, here's my story.

I'm curious what you think of that.

Are we still in a world in which the good stories rise?

Or does there have to be some other element to make sure that

the story is given attention before anyone has a chance to go?

I like that story.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: so I think it's a combination.

I think that generally speaking, in the world that we live in, people are

looking for the good news stories.

They are looking to have their fears dealt with by, maybe it's a video of

you in your cornfield or you with one of your cows or pigs or whatever it is.

There is still very much that desire for good things, the desire for positivity

and the desire for people to feel like they're aligning with the community.

So that's something I think we need to take into consideration

when, you're talking about, oh, the battles that are being fought

on X or whatever that looks like.

Social media has become people's social network.

It has become their social fabric, and it is where trust is earned.

Now, that social licence, we talk about our ability to operate in agriculture

and how critical that social licence is.

That social licence is now earned online.

It's not from academia anymore.

It's not from our government.

It's not from policy makers, it's from the influencer.

It's from the person that you look at online and go, oh, they seem like me.

Oh, I really like them.

And you establish this connection with that person, all of a sudden that

person posts, oh, GMOs are bad people.

On that post say, yep, nope, GMOs are bad.

You start to internalise that as, oh, this person that I see every

day who looks like me and has a family like me says they're bad.

I guess they must be bad.

And unfortunately, there's no positive story to combat that, where are

you gonna go with your information?

And you're right, it is a bit of an uphill battle.

But we need to tell our stories.

We need to continue to earn that social trust and we need to do it in a way

that we can really execute on the things that we are doing well and really tell

that story outside of our circles.

And it's not just up to individual farmers.

I think ag organisations have a huge part to play in that I

think academia needs to show up.

Not just saying the data says, but

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Yeah.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: practise.

Because they used to be the people that you would turn to and say,

oh, that's what so and so says.

That's what the research says, but now it's not the case that

people stop believing the experts.

It's that the experts stop showing up in the places where trust is

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Yeah.

And the experts forgot that emotion is how we make our decisions.

The data can't speak for itself.

The data's powerful, but the scientist needs to use emotion to explain

why the data is important, why it's relevant, and this is why I think

that the power of the people first concept is, is really important.

Because as you were taking my provocation around the battle place of ideas, you

were kind of, you know, recentering the people-centric approach, which.

Also to your example of the leader, right?

Who acknowledged that they didn't have the answers.

You, you, you're not relinquishing leadership, but at the same time,

you're earning trust and you're prioritising the earning of trust,

which is a people first exercise.

That, that I think is, is indispensable.

And to bring it back to this one voice idea I, I think what you were just

describing is the, in terms of the influencer and in terms of how we make

our decisions on social media, right?

And who we look to and trust, it strikes me that that applies equally

to what many of us call out and desire in terms of we want a united voice.

I kind of feel that we're in this leadership void where everybody

kind of knows what needs to happen, but you still need someone with the

kind of chutzpah to stand up and go.

I propose this as our one voice, right?

And they may get modifications, they may get haters, but you

still need people to do that.

Like you still need someone, to your point, you know, to say, Hey look, I

think you guys are wrong about GMOs.

You know, it's actually a little more complicated.

And did you know that farmers have been breeding for thousands of years, right?

So, uh, that is still an act of leadership.

How do you see that playing out?

How do you see, whether it's young people, whether it's people who have the, the

experience of decades, you know, how do we get people to show, to demonstrate the

vulnerability, to not just have everyone looking around the room going, yeah,

yeah, yeah, we agree, but one person say, I'll stand up and take the risk.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: So one of my favourite.

Lines that I have ever heard came from a mentor of mine he said

indecision is still a decision.

just a really shitty one.

And I think that's the crossroads that we're at right now As we, we delve

into these new leadership models and with everything going on south of

the border, I think agriculture is positioned to be spectacular in Canada.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Yes.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: think there is so much opportunity

and the appetite is there, the export markets are there.

We're working with countries globally that we've never been

able to work with before or haven't worked with in a really long time.

potential for us to unleash as an AgriFood superpower is absolutely

there, and I think now is the time we have to have somebody step up

and we have to really focus on.

Coming together to ensure that we stay relevant.

And I think the central part of that is going to be people.

It's who are we bringing along with us?

And this idea of making sure we're involving the next generation and

ensuring that we, much like my dad did, show them that this is important.

You have to be involved.

You have to understand the commodity groups that represent you, the

policy that's being shaped.

Even something as simple as do you know what your local infrastructure is?

If town council decides not to fix a bridge that you need to access your

fields, are you gonna be aware of it in time to go and protest at council and

say, you like, no, I need this bridge.

Or are you gonna be really surprised in the spring when that bridge is out?

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: See.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: So there's.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Well, I, I, I, I gotta interrupt because at

the start of what you were saying, I was almost, I, I was having this emotional

reaction, which made me wonder, why am I believing Steph when she says this, when

I don't believe other leaders when they say the exact same thing, but then you

answered it because you are not saying, trust me, because I'm Steph, you are

saying, trust me, because I am connected to a whole bunch of other people.

Who are gonna do this with me, right?

And that is a completely different model of leadership than historically

our institutions have had.

And it kind of inspires me to add a new, uh, feature of the podcast,

which is Steph, who are the leaders that you're currently looking at

that are inspiring you, right?

Because I get the sense that you are not the kind of sole hero on the quest trying

to save Canada, that the enthusiasm and emotion that you just conveyed, which

made me believe you instantly, is a consequence of you feeling that there are

other people who have your back, right?

Who, who are there, uh, equally committed and motivated.

So, not to put you on the spot, but uh, you got any shout outs of other

people who our listeners should be paying attention to for the sole reason

that you are paying attention to?

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: so I have a tonne of people that are wildly

influential in my life that I turn to and look at both within ag and outside of ag.

And I think maybe that's something we don't talk about enough is looking outside

of agriculture for things that can bring into the industry that maybe are concepts

in other industries that have been proven and ongoing for quite a while.

So I actually, at a Grain Farmers of Ontario event, I met Hamza

Khan, who is a very influential leadership guru, we'll call him.

something he said in that presentation really resonated with me, and it was

that leaders make themselves redundant.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Hmm.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: So they're so focused on empowering

people and pushing people to be the best versions of themselves.

That they know they're gonna put themselves out of a job.

And

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Mm-hmm.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: That's

four or five members of their team could step up at any time and do their job.

And that's the mark of a really great leader agriculture.

I think Jennifer Wright from Kark is amazing with all of the

work that organisation is doing.

54% of people can't name a job outside of farmer.

That's wild.

And they're working so hard to show the potential that is here to

try and not have those a hundred thousand job vacancies by 2030.

I think that we have a phenomenal one of the co-ops I'm part

of Suzanne from Gay Lee is.

Absolutely a fantastic example of someone who empowers the people around

her to step up and do their job.

I think that there are a number of CEOs across commodity groups and senior

policy advisors that are fantastic.

Yeah, there's so many people

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Right on.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: industry, but also outside

that we can learn so much from.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Right on.

And that's such a fantastic attitude to have.

Which kind of leads, uh, uh, to this next question, although I, I do for a

process perspective, say, I, I, I lament that so much of Canada's approach to

leadership is the tall poppy syndrome, where we get jealous of leaders and,

and start, you know, hating them.

I want to do the opposite here.

I, I want to be us.

We're boosting all the leaders, right?

And, and, and giving them the gas.

But you, you, you started off, uh, this talk really, uh, in

expressing your joy of learning.

And it, it kind of, you know, where you just gave that last answer, especially

the idea that the leader needs to put themselves out of a job, that they

need to empower the people around them so effectively that they can do

an Irish goodbye and no one's gonna notice because the organisation will

be in great hands towards that end.

What are you currently learning?

Like what, what, what are the sorts of things that has you as a leader,

but also you as an active learner, kind of excited to add to your

repertoire of knowledge and skills?

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: so I'll start with what I'm currently doing.

So currently I am taking the Ag Women in Ag, so women in Ag from Carc.

They're they've got 10 week course that I, it's a leadership course, so I'm

doubling down on leadership skills,

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Right on.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: to the toolbox.

And I am also working on getting my bilingual certification because I think

that as we have these conversations about collaboration, it is essential

to be able to communicate in both of our official languages proficiently.

I can do it now, but it's less than perfect.

Luckily, my French counterparts, I have a good sense of humour and appreciate

me at least giving it the old college

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Right on.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: but something that I am really passionate

about and something that I have been working on now is an engagement.

Piece to our offerings at Fresh air Media.

So I think that in order to get the collaboration that we're talking

about and really having that united front as Canadian agriculture,

we really need to put the work in to engage our primary producers.

We need people at the front lines.

Acknowledging that there are time constraints, that there are

stress constraints, that there are different challenges that maybe are

preventing them from being engaged.

And we really need to work on creating a platform for communication

that meets them where they're at.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: I'd love for you to elaborate.

I, I, I, again, what I find so emotionally rewarding about our conversation today

is you keep triggering these like yeah.

Reactions or, I, I'm, I'm really inspired by kind of how you're

approaching what I think both of us see as a set of opportunities, but

if ignored a set of growing problems.

And I think the communication piece is central to that.

So, uh, elaborate, please tell me more about, you know, both the,

the kind of services that you're providing, but I think more to your

point, the capabilities that you're trying to help the sector build.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: Yeah, so I think what we're

seeing across sectors is this.

Really robust engagement around that early twenties.

So coming out of, maybe you went to college, maybe you went to university,

maybe you've been home for a few years now, but you are really getting into it.

So it's typically prior to being married, typically prior to kids, we

have this little bit of a burst of energy where people want to be involved,

they wanna influence change, they want to get into it, and then life happens.

And so what we see is that organisations that are giving back

to their producer members that have meaningful workshops, that are

providing meaningful opportunities, that are giving actual credibility.

So they're generating positions where there's actually some level

of authority given where there is an actual decision making or

ownership piece that goes with it.

They will retain those people through the ups and downs of kids and farming

challenges and all of those things that hit you in your thirties.

They may be, have a reduction in the participation that they're

they have, but you'll see them come back full force in their kind of

late thirties to early forties.

That being said, if we take that same group and we offer them token seats where

they don't have any meaningful impact on the organisation, they're not building

any credible skills, get to a point where you're evaluating different options for

your time and you go coaching minor hockey actually seems a lot more rewarding,

whatever I did here for three days.

Then you lose those people.

They don't come back.

it's very hard to try and motivate someone in their mid to late forties

to come back to an organisation that they say, eh, tried that once.

It burned me.

Or it felt like a waste of time.

It's very hard to get them re-engaged and reenergized to want to contribute to

the sector, to agricultural as a whole.

And they're no longer seeing the value in doing that.

They say I just, I, I farm and I'm just a farmer.

And that is the single most damaging line that we have in our

industry is I'm just a farmer.

Nobody is just a

We're business people.

We're entrepreneurs.

We're like, the vast level of knowledge that you have as a

primary producer is incredible.

when we build networks where we are giving back to our farmers as well as.

Actively taking in information from them and building an organisation that

accurately reflects the things that they want and the things that they need.

We empower them to not just be a farmer.

I'm not just a farmer.

I'm a leader.

I'm a policy change driver.

There's so many things that we have the ability to do with a little bit of

research and a little bit of development on our communication vehicles and

the messages that we're sending out to really foster that engagement and

getting those people back to the table.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: and I think part of the reason that I so

intuitively believe in your model of leadership and it evokes such the, an

emotional reaction in me is you understand the role that media plays in the social

fabric, in our sense of identity, in our sense of community, and where a lot

of certainly older leaders just dismiss media as like this thing out there.

You recognise it as being central to how we connect and how we

do stuff, and how we organise.

And in that regard, future Heard is here for you.

Anytime you need any help, any support, we got your back.

I am absolutely thrilled, uh, that you accepted my invitation to come

on, and I would like to say you're welcome to come back at any time.

I don't want, uh.

Future heard to be like one off and done.

I want us to become a kind of leadership culture, right.

In which we get the kind of intergenerational, uh, diverse perspective

kind of, uh, fostering that sense.

Is there anything, uh, that we haven't talked about that you'd like to discuss?

Any final thoughts?

Any subjects, uh, that you think are relevant given the, the various

threads we've weaved and ducked and gone into tangents with today?

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: Honestly, I think we've covered like a

pretty vast variety of subjects matter.

I really enjoy it.

I think it just goes back to that, that people first mentality and, we're so good

in ag at adopting innovation and adopting technology and there's this, current

rumblings of oh, AI this and AI that.

I think what we need to do is just centre that idea.

that technology is never going to replace relationships.

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Yeah.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: is never going to replace that connectedness

and that interwoven fabric of community and wanting to support one another.

What community looks like may change, and it may evolve, but at the centre

of it, it's people centric, and it's all about using people and

your relationships that you build to elevate the industry, to elevate your

own business, and understanding that those people relationships, those

relationships that you build central for

jesse-hirsh_1_03-02-2026_100514: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And you know, , your point about, I'm just a farmer as kind of a dangerous phrase,

, you kind of evoke just now the other dangerous phrase that I fear, which is I'm

too old to learn or I'm too busy to learn.

'cause I think that's also, kind of central to, to what you're

describing , and what we're teasing out.

Uh, I would to your other evocation love, , , to have you back at some point to talk

about ai, from the media perspective, not so much from the technology perspective.

'cause I think it, it is also another dynamic, that we've discussed today,

but we've, we're run way past.

And it, uh, if it wasn't, uh, uh, for my A DHD, we could keep going.

But I have a million other things I've been neglecting that I need to get to.

But Steph, this has been an.

Absolute pleasure.

Uh, IYYY.

Your ideas around leadership and, and around people-centric, agriculture

organisation, policies is revolutionary.

So, , again, , I wish you all the success.

We got your back.

Anytime you need our support, we're there and we'd love to have you back.

steph-towers_1_03-02-2026_100513: I'd love to come back.

So thanks very much for having me.

If you've listened or watched any of our previous episodes, you can

tell that I get really excited when I start learning something and I'm easily

infected by other people's passion.

And in Steph's case, I, I could barely contain myself.

It is phenomenal to meet leaders who inspire you and

make you really think that.

The future we are all entering is exciting and and filled with opportunity.

What stayed with me after we wrapped the recording was how grounded Steph

is in the human side of agriculture.

We spend a lot of time in this sector talking about production, trade,

technology policy, all the systems that surround and enable food production, but

staff kept bringing the conversation back.

To the people, to the realities.

Farmers are navigating every day and to the responsibility leaders carry

when they speak on behalf of others.

There's a quiet honesty in the way.

She approaches leadership, not pretending to have every answer, not hiding

uncertainty, instead showing up with curiosity, empathy, and a willingness

to keep learning even when the pressures facing the sector are intense

. That mindset matters.

Right now.

Agriculture is operating in a period of rapid change, geopolitical

shocks, shifting markets, evolving, expectations from the public, and

a new generation stepping into leadership roles across the country.

Conversations like this remind us that the future of the sector isn't just gonna

be determined by policy or technology.

It's going to be shaped by the character of the people willing to

lead through that uncertainty, willing to take risks, willing to step up.

And Steph is clearly one of those people.

If you enjoy this episode half as much as I did, please share it with someone

in your network who's thinking about the future of food, the future of

farming, and the future of this country.

And if you know of a leader we should be speaking with, whether they're on the

farm in the boardroom, and policy and research, we'd love to hear from you.

So thanks for listening to the Future Herd.

And we'll see you next time.