Each episode is a working conversation about long-term change in agri-food—how people adapt, coordinate, and lead together under real-world constraints.
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Episode 13: Food Security, Dignity, and Community Resilience with Treska WatsonEp 13 · March 30, 2026Treska Watson, Executive Director at The Mustard Seed Street Church, confronts the stark contradictions of food insecurity in a nation known for agricultural abundance. Through innovative food rescue and distribution strategies, she reveals how collaborative leadership can transform broken systems and restore human dignity. -
Episode 12: Why Culture Decides What We Eat with Raj ThandhiEp 12 · March 24, 2026Raj Thandhi — chef, recipe developer, and food educator behind Pink Chai Living — joins Jesse Hirsh to explore how culture shapes demand, why food has to 'belong' before it moves, and what diaspora cuisine reveals about the infrastructure that actually connects agriculture to everyday life. -
Episode 11: Making Innovation Real: Bridging the Gap Between Research and the FarmEp 11 · March 20, 2026Jesse Hirsh speaks with Todd Ormann of Olds College about why so many promising agricultural technologies struggle to reach the farm, and what it actually takes to close that gap — from applied research and Smart Farms to workforce development and Canada's fragmented innovation system. -
Episode 10: Rebels, Radicals, and the Future of Agriculture — A Conversation with Jamie ReaumeEp 10 · March 17, 2026Jesse Hirsh speaks with Jamie Reaume — nearly three decades inside Canada's agri-food sector — about why the sector's institutional conversations rarely change, what independent thinking costs, and why dissent is essential if agriculture is going to navigate the decades ahead. -
Episode 9: Building Indigenous Agriculture at Scale with Camden LawrenceEp 9 · March 9, 2026Jesse Hirsh speaks with Camden Lawrence of First Nations Agriculture & Finance Ontario about Indigenous agriculture as economic development, the capital requirements of modern farming, and the demographic opportunity that First Nations communities represent for Canada's agri-food sector. -
Episode 8: Curiosity, Trust, and the Next Generation of Farm Leadership with Steph TowersEp 8 · March 5, 2026Jesse Hirsh speaks with farm leader Steph Towers about curiosity, transparency, emotional intelligence, and the relationships needed for agriculture to lead through uncertainty. -
Episode 7: Leadership in a Volatile World (with Tyler McCann)Ep 7 · March 1, 2026Jesse Hirsh speaks with Tyler McCann of CAPI about geopolitical volatility, policy leadership, value-added capacity, and what it means to treat agri-food as a strategic sector. -
Episode 6: Dana McCauley - Building Canada's Food Innovation EcosystemEp 6 · February 23, 2026Jesse Hirsh speaks with Dana McCauley about food innovation culture, commercialization realities, and what Canada needs to build a more competitive agri-food system. -
Episode 5: Leadership, Knowledge, and the Next Generation (with Rene Van Acker)Ep 5 · February 17, 2026Jesse Hirsh speaks with University of Guelph President and Vice Chancellor Rene Van Acker about leadership, collaboration, and long-term institutional responsibility in building a resilient agri-food future. -
Episode 4: Building the Workforce of 2050 (with Jennifer Wright)Ep 4 · February 9, 2026Jennifer Wright (CAHRC) joins Jesse Hirsh to explore the skills, training models, and collaboration needed to prepare Canada’s agri-food workforce for 2050. -
Episode 2: The Dance of Foresight with Ruth KnightEp 2 · February 2, 2026The Dance of Foresight: Reimagining Leadership in Agri-Food -
Episode 1: Welcome to the Future Herd!Ep 1 · February 1, 2026This 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.