Imprinted on the concrete entryway to my parents’ dairy parlor are my older brother Austin’s toddler handprints and his name. I remember as a child placing my fingers in the tiny prints and imagining the day they were made.

“There’s a huge talent pool that agriculture needs to pay attention to” quips BDO’s Jim Synder as we visit on the plane. Jim leads the agriculture component of a Canada-wide accounting firm and has experience with chartered banks as well.

He spent a lot of time on the road last year at seminars with Leona Dargis, an Albertan ag producer and Canada’s youngest Nuffield scholar, who is under 30 and running a large operation with her sisters and their spouses.