Multiple Ag Amalgamations Happening (or Have Happened)

With the Alberta Wheat and Barley commissions set to amalgamate, it follows a growing trend in the agriculture industry.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tom Steve is the general manager of the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions. He worked for a number of years in the Canadian grain industry with various companies, mostly in roles related to marketing, grower relations and communications. In 2014, he joined the Alberta Wheat Commission (AWC) as their general manager and in 2017 Steve started managing the Alberta Barley Commission along with his AWC duties. The Alberta Wheat and Barley commissions members recently voted in favour of amalgamating with plans in place for it to formally happen in 2023.

Alberta Seed Guide (ASG): What is an amalgamation?

Tom Steve (TS): It’s moving from two separate legal entities or commissions into one. In the case of Alberta wheat and barley, we have a checkoff commission for wheat and a checkoff commission for barley, they’re both regulated under provincial regulation in Alberta. And we’ve been operating as a single management team for the past five years. Now we’re looking at taking the next step, which is to formally amalgamate our governance, our financial structure, our business operations into one — so creating a new legal entity to replace the two that currently exist.