Indigenous partners wanted for local agri-foods strategy

Federal and local governments are making a point of bringing in Indigenous communities and ideas as they look to build on the Regina-area’s agri-food industry.

On Friday morning, Minister Ralph Goodale was in Regina to announce $250,000 to Economic Development Regina.

The money came from the Western Diversification Program, and is being used to create and implement a strategy on the agri-foods industry in the Regina area.

Goodale spoke about the plant proteins being grown across Saskatchewan, the growing demand for them around the world, and the need to raise the level of value added.

“So that Regina and Saskatchewan and the prairies can be recognized globally as the major first stop on the protein superhighway around the world.”

Economic Development Regina will be working with File Hills Qu’Appelle Developments (FHQ Developments), which works in partnership with the File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council.

FHQ Developments will be finding assets in its Indigenous community partners that would be a benefit in the strategy and helping to make commercial partnerships.

“I’m hoping that we take a lead as an Indigenous-owned company and that our nations are really benefitting from future investment,” said Thomas Benjoe, president and CEO of FHQ Developments.

“We need to be at the forefront, we need to be at the table. We don’t want to come into this opportunity as a bit of an afterthought which, sometimes we are in some of the other industries. Being able to be ahead of everything and have a strategy coming in is very, very important to us to be able to participate at a much larger level.”

Benjoe explained FHQ Developments is already involved with a number of different companies – mainly in construction, but it’s also getting into IT and healthcare – and this initiative allows it to diversify a bit more.

He said the company’s member communities have already been involved in agriculture at a smaller level and this will allow that to expand.

“If this initiative is happening in our territory, we have to take advantage of it, we have to be able to be a part of it,” explained Benjoe.

There’s going to be a lot of engagement with companies, according to Benjoe, and FHQ Developments will be able to identify where the best fit is for them.

Goodale said they want to make a point of including Indigenous communities in the initiative to make sure it’s a truly inclusive effort.

He said things like this are how you make reconciliation tangible.

“You take it from being a rhetorical expression of ambition to where you actually change things in terms of jobs, education, economic development opportunity and so forth.”

According to the City of Regina, several private companies have also contributed money to the idea, and the goal is to “support the start-up, growth and attraction of companies in the plant-protein sector.” It said the city wants to make the Regina-area an agri-technology hub.

This also matches with the announcement last year of the creation of the supercluster for plant-based proteins that is headquartered in Regina.