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Central Albertans go fishing for investors at Agritechnica

If you’re going fishing, you might as well choose a big pond.For a trio of Central Albertans seeking to entice agricultural investment, Agritechnica was as big as they come.

If you’re going fishing, you might as well choose a big pond.

For a trio of Central Albertans seeking to entice agricultural investment, Agritechnica was as big as they come.

Cyril Cooper, Ashley Stewart and Rob Saik attended the recent ag machinery and equipment trade show in Hanover, Germany.

They were there on behalf of Central Alberta: Access Prosperity — an economic development organization focused on promoting economic growth in this area.

Cooper, who is manager of Central Alberta: Access Prosperity, said he was “awestruck” by the size of Agritechnica. It covered 24 buildings spread over 94 acres, with nearly 2,800 exhibitors and more than 355,000 attendees.

The size of the show made it difficult to arrange a lot of meetings, said Cooper. But he, Stewart and Saik still managed to speak with a number of prospective investors — with some meetings set up in advance and others spontaneous.

They found that the awareness of Alberta and the ag-related business opportunities here was very low.

They fielded a lot of questions about those opportunities and the business climate here, said Cooper, as well as the standard queries many foreigners have about Canada.

“A lot of questions about the weather and a lot of preconceived ideas about how cold it is here.”

A key strategy that Central Alberta: Access Prosperity has been utilizing has been looking for investment prospects at trade shows. Cooper, Stewart and Saik wanted to evaluate Agritechnica and its potential as a source of business for this region.

“We took it one step farther and were actually able to work the show and form investment prospects and leads,” said Cooper.

“We found some really strong leads that we’re actively pursuing.”

He’s optimistic that some of the contacts they made will now travel here for Red Deer’s own agricultural trade show: Agri-Trade. That will provide an excellent opportunity to showcase the region.

Stewart is an investment officer with Central Alberta: Access Prosperity and Saik is CEO of Red Deer’s Agri-Trend Group of Companies.

hrichards@www.reddeeradvocate.com