In today’s society, supply chains are built for competition — competing for supplies, suppliers, and market share. But over the past decade in the agri-food space, businesses that were once fierce competitors have been standing side-by-side to overcome the sector’s biggest challenges together. Driving down emissions in the agri-food system is one of those challenges. Host Crystal Mackay sits down with Nick Betts, Managing Director at the Canadian Alliance for Net-zero Agri-food (CANZA), and Benjamin Eastman, Senior Farm Consultant at Co-operators, to talk about collaboration and its important role in Canada achieving a net-zero agri-food system. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:00 Shift towards Collaboration in the food system 02:21 Ben Eastman, The Cooperators, and the role of collaboration 03:58 Nick Betts, CANZA, and the role of collaboration 04:31 Pre-competitive collaboration 05:55 Net zero food production: balancing the environmental scorecard 08:05 Capital investment and short-term business risks 10:12 Promoting collaboration and overcoming hurdles 13:15 Opportunities for farmers 16:20 Examples of where it’s working 18:20 The future of collaboration and net zero work 19:48 What we can all learn from belgian horses 21: Collective effervescence 22:20 Farmers telling their story and leading with curiosity Links: Video: Carbon Farming 101 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRY8hujkNMM&t=72s Canadian Alliance for Net-zero Agri-food - https://canza.ca/ Video: Carbon Farming 101 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRY8hujkNMM&t=72s The Co-operators - https://www.cooperators.ca/en/insurance/farm Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef - https://crsb.ca/ Collective effervescence - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_effervescence Credits: Host: Crystal Mackay https://ca.linkedin.com/in/crystal-mackay-683b26a Producers: Meredith Martin https://twitter.com/meredithmartin and Cara Stern https://twitter.com/carastern Production coordinator: Rebecca Babcock https://ca.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-babcock Music: Dustin Stern http://dustinspace.com The Ag Podcast is produced by Generate Canada https://generatecanada.ca/ with support from Co-operators https://www.cooperators.ca/en/insurance/farm and the Smart Prosperity Institute https://institute.smartprosperity.ca/ Questions or comments? Reach out to us at info@canza.ca