An outsider’s perspective

Dr. Peter Slade (PhD) is surprised at where he ended up in life.

“If you told me at age 20 that I’d be an agricultural economist in Saskatchewan, I probably wouldn’t even know what that was,” said Slade, an associate professor in the College of Agriculture and Bioresources at the University of Saskatchewan (USask).

But here he is – not only teaching the next generation of producers and industry stakeholders the importance of economics to agricultural operations, but also leading research to help industry participants and governments make better decisions for their policies, programs and business activities.

How did he get here? A simple shift.

After completing his undergraduate degree in business and economics at Memorial University in Newfoundland, where he grew up, Slade went on to study agricultural economics and international development, thinking he would work in international development.

But through his thesis research, comparing the productivity and efficiency of dairy farms in Canada and the United States, he became enthralled with agricultural economics and the world of academia.

“Through the coursework and interacting with faculty and others in the profession, I just really came to enjoy research, economics and working in the agricultural industry,” he said.

And now, after almost 10 years in his current position in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at USask, he has found his ‘outsider’ status to be valuable, offering new perspectives within a rapidly changing industry aiming to position itself for sustainable growth.

One of these perspectives has particularly informed his approach to teaching; positioning economics as a central tool for decision-making and strategy.

“The students here are really engaged in agricultural issues, very motivated to learn things that they think are going to be relevant to their careers,” he said.

“The trick of teaching is to make everything practical and very relevant to what students think that they're going to be doing as farm managers or as people working in the agricultural industry.”

He has also carried out this approach in one of the main focuses of his research, aimed at understanding the effect of the Canadian government’s long-standing suite of business risk management (BRM) programs, including the crop insurance program (Agri-Insurance), on farm efficiency, profitability and decision-making.

Given the importance of these billion-dollar programs, designed to safeguard farmers against income and production losses, this work has garnered much attention and has been used to inform many industry opinions on the topic.

In 2020, Slade presented to the federal Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food on the outcomes of his research looking at the effectiveness of BRMs in meeting their set objectives, making recommendations for improvements.

The following year, Slade was part of a task force to examine how BRMs can be optimized to help Canada meet its climate change goals. 

He has also been appointed as the Canadian Canola Growers Association Agricultural Policy Chair, which aims to generate more research on agricultural policy of relevance to the canola sector.

Slade believes that BRMs are a valuable tool for carrying out policy changes, which means this type of work will only increase in importance.

Apart from policy, Slade’s research has also aimed to help producers become more efficient and profitable in their farming operations.

Some of his ongoing work in this area is testing the wider effects of crop rotations across the province using field-level data and satellite-derived yield estimates. Although it’s early in the study, hesays takeaways to date have driven home the idea that diversity is important to rotations and that pulse crops can be very beneficial.

“Pulse crops fix nitrogen in the soil, so in theory, you could get away with using less nitrogen in your subsequent crops.”

The final focus of Slade’s research is on helping the agriculture industry position itself to anticipate and meet emerging and growing consumer demands. Specifically, he has been involved in research aiming to understand just how much demand there is, and will be, for plant-based food products and ingredients, and how much of an impact this could have on meat and dairy industries.

For example, one study he was involved in a couple years ago found that, for every litre of plant-based milk sold, it reduced sales of dairy milk by half of a litre.

“So, half of the people who are buying it either didn't buy dairy milk before or they’re using it in a different context, and half of it is a direct one-to-one replacement for dairy milk,” he said.

Another of Slade’s ongoing projects, examining consumer acceptance of cell-based meat (meat grown from animal cells rather than whole animals) and plant-based proteins, has yielded some interesting results. 

“We found that women were more likely to prefer plant-based meat substitutes, but men were more likely to prefer lab-grown meats,” he said. 

Overall, Slade hopes that his work in this area will help the industry position itself to capitalize on the plant protein market, by understanding what is driving demand and consumer priorities.

“From the context of producers, the big opportunity for plant-based protein is still largely in export markets. But this is a growing area, and a lot of its success will come down to taste and price, by far the most important things to consumers. So, building a better burger, or whatever the product is, will certainly increase market share.”

Going forward, he hopes his teaching and research work will help drive the sustainable growth of Saskatchewan’s agriculture industry through effective policies, informed management practices, and sound economic projections and data.

And he plans to continue to use his outsider’s perspective to inform his approaches.

“People who have spent their whole life in the industry have a lot of knowledge that I don’t,” he said. “But at the same time, poking around, asking some unexpected questions and approaching things from a slightly different lens provides you with a different perspective.

“I think that kind of outsider's point of view can be helpful.”

Agknowledge, Fall 2024