Before anything else comes the seed. Before harvest goals, marketing plans, production budgets, equipment planning – everything starts with the seed you plant and what you hope to get out of it come autumn.
With tightening margins and seemingly constant market upheaval, it can feel like today’s farmers have a lot more riding on the seed they buy. Which is why they’re looking for more certainty when it comes to seed purchases in terms of local performance data, financial options, agronomic support and more.
In other words, farmers are looking for a complete package that starts with seed selection, then includes all the products and agronomic help they need to get the most out of that seed across the growing season.
Brad Federspiel totally gets that. “I consider ourselves as that one-stop-shop for all farm needs,” says the division product manager for North Saskatchewan with Nutrien Ag Solutions. “When we sell a customer seed, we really want to provide the agronomic and financial support to back that up.”
Federspiel says that Nutrien Ag Solutions has built an ag retail model that seeks to provide farmers with wrap-around products and services to help them achieve the certainty they’re looking for when they make that seed purchase.
Data-driven choices
Federspiel explains that while Nutrien Ag Solutions offers its own proprietary seed brand, Proven Seed, it also sells seed from top performing brands like InVigor, Brevant and Dekalb – all of it tested for regional adaptability and performance.
“We want something that works well in our growing regions,” he says. “We do small plot and field performance checks, or FPC trials, specifically on Proven products,” he says, adding that in his region alone, 48 FPC trials were conducted in the 2025 growing season on corn and canola. “That’s with different farmers all using their own farm practices.”
The result, Federspiel says, is a robust data set farmers can use to assess how a particular variety or hybrid performs in their growing conditions so they can make an informed choice.
It’s a similar situation with crop protection and fertilizer products where Nutrien Ag Solutions has proprietary brands but also offers a full suite of third-party brands farmers know so they can make the choices they’re most comfortable with.
More than seed: agronomic and financial support
“I feel like we really work with growers to find good agronomic solutions and the best financial solutions for them,” says Federspiel.
With 220 branches across the Prairies, Nutrien Ag Solutions’ retail network operates somewhat akin to old-school provincial extension services in that its Sales Agronomists work closely with local farmers throughout the season to help them answer questions and solve problems.
Brian Fyson farms 6,000 acres with his father near the hamlet of Arelee, Saskatchewan. He’s been a Nutrien Ag Services customer since 2012 and says the support he receives has earned his loyalty.
“I buy all my inputs from Nutrien in Perdue,” he says. “I feel if I buy 100 per cent from them, they’ll support me 100 per cent.”
And they have. Fyson says his Nutrien Ag Solutions agronomist, Colin Perillat, is always available to answer questions, and often just shows up to check on the crop, scout for pests and help make spray and harvest decisions.
But perhaps an even greater service is getting Perillat’s help sorting through the numerous grower programs to find the best deals for his farm. “He helps me sort through those programs and, if something goes wrong, like a herbicide failure or something, Nutrien will call the product rep to come out and look.”
It’s a load off Fyson’s busy shoulders that allows him to focus on other tasks.
Federspiel concurs. “Our role as a retailer is to find the gaps in those programs and find the best solutions for our customers,” he says. “We have built crop planning tools to help design individual crop plans that save the most amount of money – we look at how we can take a piece of all those supplier programs and not leave any money on the table.
“From a service perspective, our retail staff is side-by-side with customers,” says Federspiel, adding that Nutrien Ag Solutions provides farmers with everything from production advice to financial and risk management planning. “Our branches often have extended hours when necessary – if they call, we’ll come.” For more information, visit Nutrien Ag Solutions website
