Terry Aberhart farms a 15,000-acre operation in Langenburg, Saskatchewan and runs a scaled precision agronomy business alongside it. In this conversation, he explains why a business that only functions when the owner is present isn't actually a business, and walks through what changed when he built a team designed to run without him. He covers the origin of a variable rate fungicide program that BASF would later commercialize as xarvio, the culture of chronic busyness he sees as a warning sign rather than a badge of honour, and a daily routine of cold showers and breathing work he credits with sharper decision-making.
Terry Aberhart farms 15,000 acres, runs a scaled agronomy business, and was raising six kids at the time of this conversation. The question people actually want answered isn't how he does it all. It's why his farm doesn't fall apart when he leaves for training four times a year.
The answer he gives isn't about working harder. It's about building a team that doesn't need him in the room, an idea one of his own agronomists brought to him that later became a product BASF would commercialize a decade later, and a habit of taking a cold shower every morning that he credits with more clarity than anything else he does.
What's Inside
- Why building a business that only works when you're there means you don't have a business, you have a job
- The variable rate fungicide idea an agronomist brought to the farm, and how it became xarvio a decade later
- Why "stupidly busy" became a badge of honour in agriculture, and why that's actually a warning sign
- The morning routine, cold showers included, that Terry credits with sharper decisions and more energy
- What changed after a trip to Ethiopia with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, and how it reframed his relationship with stress
- Why regenerative agriculture and soil health are the next North Star, and what history's collapsed civilizations have to do with it
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