The world will always need food. It’s a simple enough concept, but one that fostered an incredible determination in Ryan Stack to buck the trend of his friends who pursued work in the oil patch. Ryan instead chose a career in agriculture. After earning his business degree with a major in Sales and Marketing, Ryan applied at Cargill in Calgary, one of North America’s largest privately held companies. He applied for an Operations Manager Trainee position, but didn’t get the job. Instead, they asked him to join their sales team and before long he was an Assistant Farm Marketing Representative. Three years later Cargill asked him to lead a team of Canola Origination Merchants, based out of the world’s largest canola processing facility in Clavet, Saskatchewan. 

Ryan is now the Manager of Canola Origination. In his job he helps sign canola producers to supply the facility, but it isn’t a simple buyer-seller relationship.

“Farmers take on an incredible amount of risk in hopes of having a good crop,” Ryan said.  “I’d like to think of us as partners in helping to manage that risk.”

The risks and the challenges in agriculture are very real, with population projections skyrocketing and our ability to feed the world needing to increase. Ryan is both humbled and optimistic about the challenge.

 “If you don’t like change, you’re going to hate being obsolete,” said Ryan.

Young enthusiastic people like Ryan Stack add new life and vitality to Canada’s agricultural sector. If the projections are any indication, more professionals like him will be needed for the foreseeable future in this incredibly diverse and growing business sector.