Comfort over courage: The cost of playing it safe in agriculture

There is a quiet crisis in Canadian agriculture. It doesn’t make headlines or trigger emergency meetings, but it is real. Across too much of our industry, initiative has been replaced with hesitation, courage with caution, and leadership with maintenance. We have grown timid, content to manage the past instead of creating the future.

We’ve seen this before in Canada. We led the world with Nortel, a company born from Canadian innovation, and watched it collapse under the weight of indecision and caution. We had a second chance with BlackBerry, a global icon that redefined communication, yet we hesitated again. Twice, we mistook comfort for success, and twice we lost the leadership we had earned.

Agriculture now stands at a similar crossroads. We have built a world-class system admired for its science, efficiency, and resilience. But if we keep managing yesterday instead of building tomorrow, we will repeat the same national mistake: protecting what we have until it is gone.

If we are not careful, Canada will lose its agricultural edge not because we were outcompeted, but because we stopped competing.

We’ve confused governance with leadership. Leadership is about direction, not deference. Yet in too many organizations, decisions are stalled, delayed, or delegated upward until urgency is lost. Boards are meant to guide, not govern every move. Executives are meant to lead, not wait for permission.

When everyone hesitates, action dies. The best boards empower courage and reward initiative. They do not smother it in process. Leadership requires judgment, not unanimity.