(Canadian Press) TORONTO - The chief executive of Agrium Inc. (TSX:AGU) says there are good macroeconomic conditions across the agricultural sector, providing the Calgary-based fertilizer, chemical and seed company with more growth opportunities.
"You don't just have wheat or corn (doing well). It's wheat, corn, soybean, cotton, palm oil — you name it. they're all up high," CEO Mike Wilson said Wednesday at an industry conference.
He said Agrium is in a unique position because of its diversity.
The company has both wholesale and retail operations, a geographically dispersed business around the world and provides farmers with products for a wide variety of crops.
"We're on just about every crop you can think of," Wilson said. "We manage strawberries, we manage lettuce, obviously all the major crops, sugar cane, palm oil . . . bananas."
"And by having that diversity, we're not reliant on one crop."
Wilson said Agrium, which has its base in North America and has expanded into South America and Australia through acquisitions, is looking at Central Europe as an area that's ripe for expansion over the coming years.
"We just bought CerealToscana . . . and what that's done is position and strengthen our European position, mainly in Italy, but we you see us now starting to move into Central Europe," Wilson said.
"We're in Bulgaria, we're in Romania and we're looking at Central Europe because we think that's the place we want to be in five to 10 years. There's a lot of growth opportunity. They're not applying the appropriate amount of nutrients, they're not using the latest technology on seed and chemistry."
He described the North American spring planting season, which has been plagued by wet weather including flooding in Manitoba, as "very interesting."
"April was terrible, one of the latest starts we've seen in history from a farmer point of view," Wilson said.
"In May, it turned right around. May has been an incredible month. We can't keep up to the demand."