Al-Katib says Canada has Resources and Talent to Lead the World

Jul 02, 2025
By Jean-Paul McDonald
Assistant Editor, North American Content, Farms.com

AGT Foods Drives Global Pulse Trade Growth

In a recent episode of Asia Pacific Conversations, Murad Al-Katib, CEO of AGT Foods and Ingredients, shared insights into the journey of Canadian agriculture in global markets.

As the head of a Saskatchewan-based startup that has grown into a billion-dollar international food company, Murad spoke about the importance of diversifying Canada’s agri-food exports beyond the U.S.

Founded in 2001, AGT Foods is now one of the world’s largest suppliers of pulses like lentils, chickpeas, peas, and beans. The company also plays a major role in the growing plant-based protein industry.

Murad’s leadership has positioned AGT Foods as a major player in global supply chains, especially at a time when food security and climate concerns are rising.

In the podcast, he explained that relying heavily on one market, such as the U.S., puts Canadian agriculture at risk due to shifting geopolitics and economic policies. He believes that expanding into Indo-Pacific countries helps create new opportunities and makes Canada’s agri-food sector more resilient.

Murad emphasized that diversification means more than trade. It includes improving efficiency, maintaining high-quality standards, and understanding regional demands. His strategy involved working closely with growers, governments, and international buyers to ensure long-term success.

He also discussed the need for Canada to continue investing in innovation, sustainability, and infrastructure to remain competitive. “Canada has the natural resources and talent to lead in global food systems,” he noted.

This podcast episode serves as a reminder of how visionary leadership and smart trade strategies can help Canadian agriculture grow stronger, more efficient, and better prepared for global challenges.

“Canada has the natural resources and talent to lead in global food systems,” said Murad Al-Katib.

Photo Credit: AGT Foods

Video: From Students to Solutions | On The Brink: Season 2, Episode 14

Ask Canada’s most decorated soybean breeder his favourite part of the job and he doesn’t name a single variety. He names the students.

Istvan Rajcan is a professor of soybean breeding and genetics in the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph, where he has run the soybean breeding program for 28 and a half years. In that time he has developed 87 soybean cultivars, published 140 refereed papers and trained 51 graduate students. In 2025 he received the Public Sector Impact Award from the National Association for Plant Breeding.

He is also worried. In this episode he says Canada is at a crossroads, pointing to recent government cuts to plant breeding programs and to the facilities that support them. His prescription is structural. "Plant breeding funding formula has to be a long-term one," he says.

The formula he is defending is the public-private matching arrangement his program runs on. Private seed companies fund the work, provincial or federal money matches it, and the combined pool stretches each dollar further than either source could alone. At the National Association for Plant Breeding annual meeting in June, he says American public breeders were often surprised at how well that collaboration works in Canada.

He also describes how the people entering plant breeding have changed. His early graduate students came mostly from farms. More recently they include, in his words, "city kids who just became excited about genetics."

Topics covered:

Why public-private plant breeding funding in Canada needs a long-term

commitment rather than a larger one

How matching private seed company investment with provincial and federal

dollars multiplies research capacity

How the graduate student pipeline into plant breeding has shifted from

farm kids to city kids