Ivey MBA students put Canada’s food future on the table at this year’s Leading Critical Issues Challenge, taking on one of the country’s most important questions: how to increase yields through sustainable agriculture.
At the centre of the challenge was Farm Credit Canada (FCC), the country’s only crown corporation devoted exclusively to financing agriculture. With a $60-billion portfolio supporting farmers and food businesses nationwide, FCC plays a critical role in shaping the food system. Through its Sustainable Capital Incentive Program (SCIP) – a pilot initiative helping farmers invest in environmentally resilient practices – FCC is positioning itself as a catalyst for transformation.
Agriculture is a blind spot among Canadian consumers and public policy debate, with much greater attention focused on Canada’s fossil fuel industry. FCC is helping to reshape that narrative, with its investments in food and agriculture that can contribute substantially to Canada’s GDP while sequestering carbon.
The challenge: Using finance to balance sustainability and profitability
Over three fast-paced days, guided by Professor Tima Bansal, students stepped into the role of FCC advisors. They were tasked with the question: How should FCC respond to SCIP’s critics, who questioned the financial benefits of sustainability programs? Students were told “anything goes” – from changing the formulation of SCIP, changing incentives, improving communications, to simply doing nothing.
Using systems thinking – a big-picture approach that considers ripple effects – students analyzed trade-offs, mapped outcomes, and proposed strategies to balance sustainability with financial resilience. Organized into crop-themed teams – from barley to willow – they crafted scenarios for FCC’s future.
Leadership perspectives
To give students direct insight, FCC President and CEO Justine Hendricks and Vice-President of Sustainability Marie-Claude Bourgie joined the challenge for a Q&A session ahead of the presentations.
At the event kickoff, Bourgie didn’t just outline FCC’s strategy – she offered students candid insights into the tensions the organization faces. She challenged them to grapple with the big opportunity to drive sustainability in agriculture, while also weighing the financial realities of margins and risk.
“We realized there is really a big opportunity to drive sustainability in agriculture,” she said. “So we came up with this bold statement: What can we do in this new strategy to really elevate the industry – to be bold in making Canada a leader in food security and sustainable food production by grabbing innovation and being a catalyst for value creation in the ecosystem?”
Sustainability, she explained, is not just a buzzword but a driver of long-term success. Yet, many stakeholders are focused on short-term outcomes and are critical of sustainability.
“Sustainability is important for resilience. It's important for productivity … sustainability is not going anywhere,” she said.
Teaching critical skills for complex problems
The competition is part of Ivey’s Leading Critical Issues course, a cornerstone of the MBA program, that immerses students in complex, real-world challenges tied to sustainability, Canada’s global role, and the future of work. Alongside the FCC challenge, students participated in activities using systems thinking, including forecasting global trends and their likely outcomes and foresighting their desirable futures.
“Issues are deeply interconnected, and we are facing a world in which everything is becoming even more interconnected,” said Bansal. “It’s really hard to find single answers or single problems, so we need a very different way of problem-solving – one that is much more about adaptation than about planning and control.”
Professor Martha Maznevski, PhD ’94, MBA Faculty Director, said the challenge reflects Ivey’s broader mission.
“Leading Critical Issues is part of Ivey’s strategy. It’s one of the main pillars where we focus our research, teaching, and impact around issues that are really important in boardrooms, companies, societies, and policy-making,” she said. “In this module, we focused on some leading-edge tools that enterprises are becoming more and more competent in using, and on applying those techniques to a specific organization's challenge.”
Turning insights into impact
The challenge culminated in presentations before panels of judges, where students were assessed not only on their analysis but also on their ability to simplify complexity, craft actionable plans, and communicate compellingly. Judges included Ivey faculty, PhD students, and leaders from industry and social innovation, such as ATCO, Goodwill, and Innovation North.
Seeds of change for Canadian agriculture
For Bansal, the impact goes beyond the competition itself.
“FCC is an organization going through a major transformation, with an unparalleled ability to influence Canadian food, agriculture, and the broader economy,” she said. “They also have the motivation to do it, which makes it exciting to work with them on creating positive change in Canada.”
And the winners are...
Congratulations to Team 11 (Hazelnut) for winning the 2025 Leading Critical Issues Case Competition! Team members included: Baricha Saddam Ali, Abdi Gokul Dhandapani, Rhea Ghotgalka, Robert Gray, Nneora Nwosu, and Cherry Qian. Congratulations also to Team 4 (Butternut) for winning the People’s Choice Award (student vote). Team members included: Ayat Ahmed, Racheal Bhosha, Nik Dimitrov, Samira Jain, Quoc Lap Nguyen, and Manpreet Singh.
Thank you to the judges
The panel of judges included Ivey faculty members Lara Liboni and Mazi Raz, MBA ’05, PhD ’14; PhD students Michelina Aguanno, Valen Boyd, and Jin-Su (Jenny) Kang; and members of the Innovation North team, Minali Giani, Hannah Hill, and Melanie Issett, HBA ’20. External judges were Michelle Baldwin (Senior Associate, Equity Cubed), George Constantinescu (Chief Transformation Officer, ATCO), Michelle Quintyn (retired CEO, Goodwill), and James Stauch (Director, Institute for Community Prosperity, Mount Royal University).
(Photo above) Front row, l-r: Michelle Baldwin, Michelina Aguanno, Valen Boyd, and Jin-Su (Jenny) Kang. Back row, l-r: James Stauch, Marie-Claude Bourgie, Justine Hendricks, Melanie Issett, Tima Bansal, Mazi Raz, George Constantinescu, Hannah Hill, Lara Liboni, Minali Giani, Michelle Quintyn, and Martha Maznevski.
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