Growing the Future

John Deere settled a $99 million lawsuit. Cory Doctorow says that's not the point. The point is a Canadian law passed in 2012 -- after 6,132 Canadians said no to it and 53 said yes -- that makes it illegal to fix your own equipment using anything the manufacturer did not approve. The tractors stolen from Ukraine were remotely immobilized. If that capability were turned toward Canadian farms, you would not need tanks at the border.

Cory Doctorow coined enshittification -- the framework now in the Oxford English Dictionary for how platform companies progressively extract more from captive users. He is a special advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. This is his perspective on the John Deere settlement, where right-to-repair goes from here, and what the most organized political force in rural Canada could actually do about it. This is not Growing the Future's verdict on Deere or any equipment manufacturer.

What's Inside

- What enshittification means and why John Deere became Cory's clearest example of it outside tech platforms

- Parts pairing: how a chip on your equipment determines who can fix it and what components can connect to it

- How data generated by your tractor was being siphoned -- and why data ownership and right-to-repair are the same underlying issue

- Honeybee, a Saskatchewan head-end manufacturer, cannot connect their products to Deere equipment because of digital locks, not any technical limitation

- Canada's Bill C-11: the Copyright Modernization Act passed in 2012 after 6,132 Canadians opposed it and 53 supported it

- Digital sovereignty: from Ukraine's remotely immobilized tractors to what happens if that switch gets turned toward Alberta

- Why voting with your wallet does not work in a monopoly, and what the Grangers' fight with the railroads in 1890 has to do with where we are right now

- A specific call to action: CCLA, Open Media, and the EFF -- and why farmers are one of the most effective political forces in this country when they choose to be

Also discussed: Cory's new book "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI" -- Number 1 Canadian bestseller, New York Times list, and in the same week enshittification was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

 

Resources Mentioned

The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI -- Cory Doctorow (Number 1 Canadian bestseller -- available at Indigo and McNally Robinson)

Electronic Frontier Foundation -- eff.org

Open Media -- openmedia.ca

Canadian Civil Liberties Association -- ccla.org

pluralistic.net -- Cory's daily newsletter

Honeybee -- Canadian head-end manufacturer, Saskatchewan

Agri GPS bridge -- referenced by audience member Jim Hale as an example of third-party ag tech workaround

 

If you want to hear more from the GTF back catalog on what it costs when farm equipment goes down, start with: Matt Yanick's episode: Downtime: The ROI Killer. 

And if the data question from this conversation stays with you, Wade Barnes' Farmers Edge series looks at who owns what comes off your farm.

 

Connect with Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net

craphound.com

Book: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI -- Indigo, McNally Robinson, and all major booksellers

 

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Website: growingthefuture.ca 

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Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

In agriculture, being busy is practically a badge. Ask anybody how they're doing and you'll get some version of underwater. So how does a 25-year-old fifth-generation grain farmer from Churchbridge, Saskatchewan, who also writes federal grain policy, finishes a master's thesis, teaches university, and referees hockey across the country, have more room in her day than most people do? Kate Sauser has ADHD, a system she built around how her brain actually works, and a tattoo on her wrist that reads "everything in time." This is the episode where she explains it.

 

Resources Mentioned

Albert Einstein: "Time is relative, its only worth depends on what we do as it is passing"

Billy Joel: "Vienna" -- "Slow down, you're doing fine. You can't be everything you want to be before your time."

Google Calendar -- Kate's primary scheduling tool

ChatGPT -- Kate uses it for daily task planning, meal planning, and workouts

 

Connect with Growing the Future

Website: growingthefuture.ca

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Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast

LinkedIn: Growing the Future

Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

One refinery south of Edmonton will process a million tonnes of canola feedstock this year, more than 10% of Canada's entire canola crop at a single facility. The US renewable fuel standard needs another 2.7 million tonnes on top of that, and Indonesia is moving toward a 50% biodiesel blend requirement. In the 2000s, corn ethanol turned a $2.50 crop into a $9 crop in under a decade. Growing the Future's foremost live briefing examines whether canola is about to run the same play, and what the structural demand shift already means for Prairie land values.

 

Topics and Timestamps

0:00 -- Opening: the renewable diesel demand story and the canola-as-fuel structural shift

3:00 -- Sponsor acknowledgments and panelist introductions

5:00 -- Is canola food or fuel, and does the distinction matter?

6:00 -- Shaun Wildman: calorie analysis and why food affordability is not the argument

9:00 -- Quick Dick McDick: Saskatchewan's 24 million canola acres and the case for playing both markets

13:00 -- Ryan Bonnett: the corn ethanol parallel and how US biofuel policy drives domestic demand

14:00 -- RIN credits and the 12-cent-per-pound penalty for Canadian-sourced canola in US markets

16:00 -- Indonesia's B50 blend requirement and what global feedstock scale actually looks like

18:00 -- Local processing expansion: Cargill in Regina, LDC and Richardson in Yorkton doubling capacity

22:00 -- The bottleneck: crush capacity is the ceiling, not canola production

27:00 -- Scale check: the US diesel market and how much canola it would take to move the needle

28:00 -- EPA rates canola second-best vegetable oil for US renewable fuel programs

32:00 -- Saskatchewan's carbon advantage: 67% lower footprint through zero-till canola

36:00 -- US winter canola expansion as a future risk to Canadian market share

39:00 -- Could canola's price floor shift from $500 to $700 per tonne?

45:00 -- Prairie land values: what the renewable diesel demand shift means for buyers and holders

48:00 -- Large land acquisitions, the Minette deal, and what it means for the next generation of operators

52:00 -- Closing round: one takeaway from each voice in the room

 

Connect with Growing the Future

Website: growingthefuture.ca

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Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast

LinkedIn: Growing the Future 

Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

In April 2026 the United Nations revised its worst-case climate scenarios downward and declared the most catastrophic projections highly implausible. Almost no one in Canada covered it. Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University and host of Canada's number one rated food podcast, has spent 25 years doing the work the room needs: holding science, policy, and politics to the same standard. In this conversation, he takes on three issues agriculture keeps being told what to think about, climate policy, gene editing, and the Canadian fear of failure, and gives the room the version it hasn't been getting.

 

Topics and Timestamps

0:00 -- Dan's opening question: think of one issue in agriculture you've changed your mind on in the last five years

1:30 -- "Don't Follow the Flock" -- live intro and platform housekeeping

3:00 -- Dr. Sylvain Charlebois: The Food Professor Podcast, Dalhousie, Canada's number one food podcast with zero budget

4:00 -- Ireland, Brexit, and the economic lesson Canada keeps missing about CUSMA

10:00 -- Audience poll: when you hear a strong opinion from a non-farmer, what's your first instinct?

11:00 -- Why civic engagement in food systems makes farming stronger, not weaker

13:00 -- Demand chain management: build from the consumer back, not the farm gate forward

15:00 -- How Canadian media coverage became one-sided and why it keeps getting harder to correct

22:00 -- The GTF promotion ad that was rejected -- and what that reveals

23:00 -- Topics Sylvain is asked not to raise on Ottawa stages

25:00 -- The "mini-me" problem in academia: conform, or get canceled

33:00 -- MYTH 1: Climate change -- the UN revised its worst-case scenarios downward; almost no Canadian outlet covered it

40:00 -- Carbon pricing at $110 a tonne with emissions still rising: what the data actually shows

44:00 -- MYTH 2: Gene editing -- why transparency and consumer buy-in are the one thing the industry keeps skipping

46:00 -- MYTH 3: Going broke is bad -- what a Purdue lunch table of ag entrepreneurs revealed about Canadian risk culture

49:00 -- Monette's bankruptcy, Robert Andjelic, and why Canada should treat risk-takers as a national asset

51:00 -- Ryan Bonnett's question: Sylvain's three priorities for Canadian agriculture

52:00 -- Where Canada leads the G20 in agricultural science, and where it falls short

53:00 -- CUSMA, July 1st, and what the non-renewal actually signals for investment in Canadian ag

54:00 -- Close and upcoming: Strathcona renewable diesel with Quick Dick McDick and Sean Wildman; right-to-repair tractors with Cory Doctorow

 

Resources Mentioned

The Food Professor Podcast -- Dr. Sylvain Charlebois (available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms)

Episode: Interview with US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra -- on The Food Professor Podcast

Agri-Food Analytics Lab -- Dalhousie University (dal.ca/agri-food-analytics-lab)

Postmedia op-eds -- Dr. Sylvain Charlebois writes every two to three days (available at major Postmedia outlets)

MNP / Dalhousie G20 agricultural science comparison study -- referenced in conversation, available through Agri-Food Analytics Lab

 

Connect with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois

The Food Professor Podcast: thefoodprofessor.ca

Dalhousie University Agri-Food Analytics Lab: dal.ca/agri-food-analytics-lab

X / Twitter: @FoodProfessor

 

Connect with Growing the Future

Website: growingthefuture.ca

YouTube: Growing the Future

Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast 

LinkedIn: Growing the Future

Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

The person everyone asks how they do it all is usually the last person to have a tidy answer. Kate Sauser is a policy manager at Grain Growers of Canada, a fifth-generation farmer from Churchbridge, SK, a high-level hockey referee, a competitive softball player, and a master's student finishing her thesis, all at 25. In this conversation, she shares the three-part framework behind her course on time: the problem most operators carry but rarely name out loud, the single decision that changes how the whole calendar feels, and the practical moves that make it work week to week.

 

Topics and Timestamps

0:00 -- Pre-registration responses: what does "I don't have time" actually mean?

1:00 -- Live intro: "How Does She Do It All?" and platform housekeeping

3:00 -- Kate's background: family farm near Churchbridge, Grain Growers, U of S, hockey, softball, 25

6:00 -- The over-committer's honest answer: time is relative to what you decide to do with it

9:00 -- Live poll: which of these sounds like your week?

11:00 -- Why technology makes the time problem worse before it makes it better

12:00 -- Kate's daily to-do list system: schedule blocks, high-priority vs. rolling low-priority tasks

14:00 -- Pen to paper: why writing it down works better than any app

15:00 -- "Everyone gets angry at time but doesn't work with it" -- the shift that started everything

16:00 -- The $86,400 analogy: if you had that many dollars to spend today, would you waste it?

18:00 -- The "Everything in Time" tattoo and the philosophy behind it

19:00 -- Modern myths about time and the scarcity loop they reinforce

21:00 -- Harry Siemens on day-timers, five priorities, and why four and five often disappear by noon

22:00 -- Hard stops and focused blocks: how Kate finished her master's thesis

25:00 -- ADHD, late diagnosis at 23, and the paralysis that comes before the system

31:00 -- Is ADHD a disability or a superpower? Kate's answer

34:00 -- Turning guilt into fuel: how a negative emotion becomes next-day productivity

37:00 -- Burnout is real: Kate's honest account of hitting the wall and what actually helps

38:00 -- Attitude as a daily choice: Harry Siemens' 1986 motto and why Kate agrees

42:00 -- Calendar as a bank account: if you want to be rich with time, check it often

45:00 -- Alex Clark in the chat: values alignment and what "pouring from an empty cup" actually means

45:00 -- Habit stacking: doing two things at once with purpose, not guilt

49:00 -- Kate's live exercise: "Did you spend yesterday, or did you let it happen to you?"

52:00 -- CTA: Everything in Time -- Kate's full course inside the Growing the Future Mastermind

53:00 -- Close and upcoming: Dr. Sylvain Charlebois on Friday

 

Resources Mentioned

Atomic Habits -- James Clear

The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control -- Katherine Morgan Schafler

Verity -- Colleen Hoover (fiction; mentioned as Kate's last great read)

Goodreads -- book-tracking and rating app (goodreads.com)

Google Calendar -- Kate's primary calendar tool

75 Hard -- fitness and discipline challenge referenced for habit stacking

 

Connect with Kate Sauser

Grain Growers of Canada: graingrowers.ca

 

Connect with Growing the Future

Website: growingthefuture.ca

YouTube: Growing the Future

Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast

LinkedIn: Growing the Future

Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.