Sask. ag manufacturers making adjustments due to Covid-19

Agriculture manufacturers in southeast Saskatchewan are makin adjustments to their operations to adapt to covid-19

SeedMaster

SeedMaster in Emerald Park is one of the leading innovators in the agriculture industry for their work in seeding and to continue to be there for their customers during the pandemic they’ve had to adapt to the circumstances. “Of course we’ve felt the impact,” said SeedMaster Director of Product Strategy Rochelle Beaujot. “We’ve been lucky from a financial standpoint because farmers are considered an essential service which granted us the ability to continue on and not have to close down completely. That was one of the best outcomes that I could have ever imagined with Covid-19 coming into our lives.”

“We had to take pretty big precautions with our staff because of that and try to maintain good physical distancing. We minimized the amount of office staff tremendously, we only allowed people who couldn’t work remotely to stay in the office. It was a very small number of people that we had stay in the office. All of our shop floor staff had to have additional PPE to ensure that they were safe and the people around them were safe. We added additional hand washing stations throughout the facility and dedicated times for staff to wash their hands at different points throughout the day. We also added additional cleaning measures with our cleaning staff here more often and doing more frequently cleaning ourselves in the office.”

With Covid-19 escalating so quickly in Canada, the decisions and changes came fast for SeedMaster to continue operating.

“It was definitely on the fly and it changed drastically every day, especially in the beginning,” she said. “But we were able to adapt and we have an amazing HR manager here and she took on the bulk of the responsibility to make sure everybody was safe and all the protocols were met that we were putting in place. It wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it definitely was something that we were able to overcome and we worked hard to make sure that we could do it and keep open.”

“At the end of the day we wanted to make sure we could service our farmers and that they were the light that kept us moving forward all of the time.”

“I don’t know if it will ever feel normal because as Canadians we’re polite most of the time and it’s a strange feeling when you’re in the office talking to a co-worker and they’re standing across the room from you,” she said. “Nothing really feels normal, it will always feel a bit odd.”

Although the adjustments SeedMaster had to make felt strange to the employees, they were smooth and had little impact on their customers.

“I think it took a little while to get used to working remotely,” she said. “Some people excel at it and some people struggle, it’s very much dependent on people’s personality, type, I think. For the most part the transition was smooth, we had to do a bit of work with our IT to make sure that everything was secure from remote stations and there were a lot more security precautions put in place because of it. It took a little while to feel comfortable being remote and with children at home, it’s not easy.”

“On the outside I think things ran pretty much the same as usual,” she said. “I’m not sure if customers even noticed a difference. We did lock our doors to outsiders so when they do pick up parts they have to pick them up outside the office. The changes that the customers would have felt were minimal. Our support staff does most of the online support through phones and not one-on-one with farmers unless there’s a need to actually see them. It has been pretty steady for the customers and we’ve been able to keep up. I think we’ve been able to keep things as normal as possible.”

With how frequently things have changed during the Covid-19 pandemic, Beaujot says it’s hard to know what type of long-term impact it will have on the agriculture industry.

“It’s really hard to say (how long the impact will be),” she said. “I’ve heard predictions that it’s going to be six months to two years before things become a bit more normal and markets start recovering a bit more. I think because of the industry we’re in it might be a lesser amount, hopefully closer to that six months. It’s very hard to predict right now.”

Bridgeview Manufacturing Inc.

Bridgview Manufacturing owner and Saskatchewan farmer Kevin Hruska runs one of the most trusted farm equipment manufacturers in Saskatchewan and he says having time to prepare for change helped the situation.

“On the Bridgeview side of it, we’re just keeping the distance, doing extra cleaning, just the more hygienic things that maybe we all should have been practicing anyway.”

“Not big changes because we are so rural, we’re used to working alone, and we don’t have anybody around us that has it. Saskatchewan and us people in this area have enjoyed the privilege of the advanced warning from the rest of the world. With that advanced warning we stopped kissing each other and sharing drinks before it really hit.”

“On the farm side we’re in it for the long haul so we’re business as usual,” he said.

“We grow good grain and people have to eat, maybe they’re eating a little less, but less stuff is being wasted. We’ve had to make very few changes on the farm side because you’re sort of in a self quarantined position anyway.”

Farmers are used to having to constantly adjust to continue on says Hruska, and although Covid-19 offers different challenges, it’s not all negative.

“We have some business going on and when you’re ag related — farmers have lifetime mentalities. We go through these ups and downs all of the time. On the grain side, contracts were honoured and grain is moving. As a matter of fact, the only positive I can see from it on the ag side is the trains have nothing else to do and they’re actually moving our grain because they have spare time. They’re moving on time and doing a great job. With the economy slowing down they have spare trains and are actually moving product on time. That helps us. It seems like countries are taking our grain because this isn’t the time for them to ration and they’re keeping the grain coming.”

“I do have a concern though, every deep fryer on the face of the planet was shut off one morning,” he said. “Eventually that’s going to come and really hit the canola market. How much canola oil do you use when you put one teaspoon into your pizza dough compared to when you fill your turkey fryer at Thanksgiving. That’s kind of the worry.”

Overall, Hruska says it’s hard to gauge where things will be down the road for his business and the ag industry in general, with all of the negative factors right now.

“On the manufacturing side we’ve felt the impact, we’re sort of running in a limp mode,” he said. “It’s not as bad as a restaurant or anything like that, generally speaking the agriculture side hasn’t taken as big of a hit yet, but I think it’s more of an erosion and I don’t know how we’re going to turn it around. Once your business is lost and that day comes when it’s supposedly over, your business doesn’t come back. You have to rebuild it from scratch, just like you did the first time. I’m sort of expecting that, however, the economy really wants to fight back on this one so we’re hoping for the best. It’s silenced the phones, though.”

“People are hunkering down, there’s no overtime, we’re running short shifts, their income is damaged,” he said. “But people have disposable money and they’re not wasting it. That’s part of what’s hurting our business. The negative news with politics, with China resisting our product, a rogue president in the United States antagonizing the world and their internal fighting. How can you turn on the news and feel like spending money? There’s a negative vibe out there and Covid-19 is just part of it.”