Final Report

One Earth Farms: A Model for Private Agricultural Investment?

By

David C. Natcher and Tom Allen

Department of Bioresource Policy, Business & Economics, University of Saskatchewan

June, 2015

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INTRODUCTION In 2009, One Earth Farms (OEF) established farming operations on First Nation reserves throughout Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. Starting with 4 employees, approximately 25,000 acres, and 1,700 head of cattle, OEF grew in only 5 years to having over 200 full and seasonal employees, 200,000 acres of cultivated farmland, and was leasing over 100,000 acres of pasture to support a herd size of 22,000 head of cattle. This expansion was been made possible through private investment of over $100 million, making OEF the largest corporate farming operation in Canada.

The basis for OEF’s success rested in OEF establishing relationships with First Nations who served as landlords, business partners, equipment operators, and ranch support for OEF operations. According Larry Rudd, former CEO of OEF, the partnership that was created between the private sector and First Nations in Canada represents a new model for North American farms1. Through this unique partnership, OEF set out to become an industry leader by reducing their risk profile through economies of scale. But just as quickly as it came into operation, so too did it fail, and by the end of 2014, OEF terminated its partnerships with its First Nation partners. Soon after, farm machinery was sold, farm employees were let go, and most of the cropland went back to being farmed by local farmers.

The objective of this AFBI supported project was to provide a systematic evaluation of the One Earth Farms. The results of this research will enhance public and private sector understanding of the factors that contributed to the failed OEF venture. We hope that the results of this project will lead to policy innovations that can reduce agribusiness risk, and create more private investment and sustained economic development for First Nations in Saskatchewan.

METHODOLOGY Stage One of our methodology involved a content analysis of public documents, press releases, and annual reports of OEF. These documents provide a timeline showing key development periods of OEF, from its inception in 2009 to its culmination in 2014. Stage Two of our research involved semi-directed interviews with former staff and employees of OEF, as well as with representatives from First Nations who had leased reserve lands to OEF and were to received equity ownership in OEF operations.

1 (http://www.oneearthfarms.ca/about_us/ceos_message/).

One Earth Farms: A Model for Private Agricultural Investment?

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OEF TIMELINE The following table provides a summary of key development periods of OEF. This includes information on farm expansion, financial investment, staffing, and finally, OEF’s transition out of from crop production.

Table 1. Development Timeline of One Earth Farm

2008

Kevin Bambrough, former president and CEO of Sprott Resource Corp. (SRC) first proposed to create One Earth Farm (OEF), a one-million-acre operation, distributed over the three provinces that would rank among the biggest farms in the world.

2009

In March of 2009, OEF is officially launched in Saskatoon as a corporate farming venture that “will become a large scale, fully-integrated corporate farming entity, which intends to have operations on world-class First Nations' farmland in the Prairie Provinces.”

OEF announces its plans to focus on sustainable, environmentally responsible land use; hire and train aboriginal workers; and provide First Nations an equity stake in the company, and create 250 jobs for Native people across the Prairies.

SRC announces its investment of $27.5 million in OEF on March 4, 2009.

Farming in 2009 was completed by custom operators and in August SRC announces that OEF had seeded 12,000 acres of crops on three First Nations farms in Saskatchewan, consisting of canola, wheat and barley.

Former Assembly of First Nation National Chief Phil Fontaine joins the OEF Board.

SRC announces that OEF completed a $15 million strategic financing pursuant to which it had issued 15 million common shares at $1 per common share.

CAPE Fund L.P (Paul Martin, Chairman) announces a $3 million investment in common shares of OEF

Ag Growth International Inc. purchased two million common shares of OEF (December 23, 2009)

Memorandum of Understanding is signed between OEF and AGI for grain handling, storage and conditioning for OEF.

Additional investors in this first round of financing include Alliance Grain Traders (TSX:AGT), the largest lentil and pea-splitting company in the world.

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2010 In September, SRC announces that OEF farmed 35,100 acres of cropland, 23,730 acres of pastureland, and 8,554 acres that was being custom farmed (total acres under administration = 93,000) OEF lands include the Blood Tribe (AB), Muskowekwan First Nation, Little Black Bear First Nation, Star Blanket First Nation, Thunderchild First Nation (SK), and private lands being custom farmed in the Outlook area. In one year OEF grows from 6 to 80 employees, 32 of who are First Nation. $5-million partnership among the federal and provincial governments, OEF, First Nations, and training institutes established for First Nation training. Saskatchewan Securities Commission grants authority for OEF to issue financial equity units to First Nations with leased lands. SRC invests an additional $30 million in OEF. December 31, 2010, OEF records a net loss of $11.1 million.

2011 OEF increases land under management to approximately 200,000 acres and becomes Canada’s largest farming operation. OEF completes first tranche of $35 million in private placement (March 17, 2011). The private placement consisted of the issue and sale of common shares at $1.40 per share. Second tranche of $39.5 million financing occurs, involving a broad mix of institutional and retail investors (including CAPE). The Blood Tribe recognized Kevin Bambrough, CEO of SRC and founding Director of OEF, with the granting of an Honorary Chieftainship in the Blood Tribe and bestowed upon him a traditional Chief's headdress. OEF expands their land base in Alberta with the acquisition of a turn-key farming operation in central Alberta, which consisted of approximately 31,000 acres of leased farmland along with $10.2 million of selected farm equipment, a building machine shop and two grain storage elevators with a total capacity of 400,000 bushels. In August of 2011, SRC releases the production totals for OEF. ( total acres = 191,000 acres)

• crop - 117,000 vs. 68,000 in 2010 • pasture -74,000 vs. 24,000 in 2010 • total livestock - 8,610 vs. 3,620 in 2010

December 31, 2011, OEF records a net loss of $14 million.

2012 The first quarter of 2012 recorded a net loss of $3.2 million compared to a net loss of $3.8 million for the same period in 2011. August 2012 saw the company record its first quarterly profit. For the three-months ended June 30, 2012, OEF recorded net income of $759,000 compared to a net loss of $4.3 million for the same period in 2011. Results posted by SRC indicated that in 2012, OEF completed seeding on 87,605 acres of cropland and 2,759 of green feed acres to be utilized by the cattle division. A first venture into consumer products had also begun with the marketing of its first natural beef products.

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- Ipsum

2013

As a strategy for vertical integration, OEF Corp. acquires Toronto based Beretta Farms Inc. a purveyor of hormone free and antibiotic free natural and organic branded meat products in Ontario and British Columbia.

With the acquisition of Beretta Farms, OEF also acquired Mike Beretta, who would later become the next President and CEO, replacing Larry Ruud.

OEF is told that it would not be able to farm on the Blood Reserve in 2013 or into the future. With the loss of these acres, the Lethbridge Farm Manager was released and the Lethbridge office is closed.

OEF acquires Toronto-based baby food brand Sweetpea Baby Food Ltd. marking a continuation of the shift from primary production to the value-added sector.

October 22, 2014 SRC announces the departure of Kevin Bambrough as CEO. He was replaced by Steve Yuzpe who had been serving as SRC’s CFO

2014

OEF announces it will be exiting its crop farming operations in 2014, in order to focus on its cattle and branded food divisions

OEF lost nearly $60 million dollars in five years. These losses include: • SRC loss since investment: $32,241,000 • OEF then-current valuation: ($25,249/0.54) $46,757,000

OEF losses in valuation to this date ($106,500 - $46,757) $59,743,000

OEF officially closes crop production operations.

RESULTS OF KEY INFORMANT INTERVIEWS

In presenting our results it is important to first define SRC’s positioning within corporate Canada as a venture capital firm. Venture capital firms typically provide early-stage financing to start-up companies and then realize a return for their investors at the time of a sale or a public offering of the shares. A venture capital firm also has a relatively shorter investment timeline where five years would be considered at the upper range of direct participation. At the time of its second round of investment in OEF in 2010 (year two), SRC was already touting the prospect for OEF to “command a high valuation” as “Canada's largest operating crop and cattle farm”, which could be interpreted as a direct path to an imminent sale. But by 2013, five years in, OEF was not showing any indication that it would be presentable for a profitable sale to a third party any time soon.

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The First Nation stakeholders were made aware of SRC’s role at the outset as an early-stage investor and accepted that there would be a transfer of ownership through a realization event where SRC would gain the benefit from their financial support. However, according to the interviews, First Nation partners were of the understanding that they would also become shareholders in OEF through a share equity distribution and eventually transition to becoming sole operators and owners of OEF farm operations. As the model evolved, and OEF presented SRC with progressively increasing negative financial returns, First Nations became less involved in OEF operation, and were being relegated to the role of landlords and not business partners. Although the Saskatchewan Securities Commission approved their equity stake in OEF, equity distribution never transpired. By 2014 the SRC potential for a sale offering was merely an operating farm on third-party leases with increasingly dissatisfied landlords and with five years of successive financial losses. At the time of the dissolution of the partnership with the First Nations, what remained of the SRC investment in the Western Canadian farming operation was recaptured through the sale of the farming equipment and redeployed to support the development and expansion of its branded food business. In the end, SRC lost more than $30 million dollars on its farming investment and the First Nation lands went back to being farmed by local non-FN farmers. The OEF model, according to its early press releases, would be supported by a professional management team; strong capitalization; and access to large tracts of world-class First Nations' farmland all of which would position OEF to become the largest, most efficient, operating farm in Canada. Undoubtedly the first two years of inclement weather presented a challenge to their efficiencies at the outset, but the mounting financial losses emanating from the farming operations were an indication that it never managed to achieve the desired plateau even within a favourable climate. OEF’s financial losses continued to mount even during the latter years of its cycle when most of Western Canada was blessed with both record crop yields and record high prices. While it achieved the three stated objectives, on paper at least, and did become the largest farm in Canada, it appears to have failed on the most important objective – “most efficient”. Throughout this relationship it was described as a partnership between corporate Canada and First Nation landholders. The First Nation stakeholders, according to the interviews, interpreted a partnership as having a common goal and a shared vision. SRC’s goal was to build Canada’s largest farm and then sell some, or all of it, while the First Nation stakeholders viewed it as an opportunity to derive enhanced benefits from their farmland holdings, including fair market value rental rates, training and employment of their individual reserve work force, and as an entry level opportunity into the world of agri-business. Every press release issued by SRC and OEF proclaimed the First Nations as valued partners, at least until February 2013, after which the press releases fell silent on this partnership arrangement. This was when Beretta Farms was acquired by OEF and Mike Beretta, and the to-be-appointed CEO, who stated in an interview that he never bought into the idea that a corporate-scale farm could work. In addition to SRC not achieving its goal of a large corporate farm to sell to a third-party investor, the early estimates of 250 First Nation jobs were missed by more than 200, and First nations were never granted an equity position in a large corporate farm, although there were at least some successful and lasting outcomes resulting from this relationship. One of the noteworthy achievements during the life-span of the OEF farming initiative was the creation of the Inroads to Agricultural Institute (IAI), a partnership among the federal and provincial governments, OEF, First Nations, and several training institutes that was established to provide foundation training for First Nations to enter the agriculture industry.

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Yet, the most significant achievement was to raise the rental rates paid by local farmers to all First Nations, not just the former partners of OEF, in many cases doubling previously paid rates. As OEF was known to calculate and present a fair market value formula to attract new First nation landlords, many other First nations were able to command higher rates from their renters under the threat of changing landlords. At the time of the writing of this paper, the majority of these higher rates are still in effect. Another of SRC’s goals of note was the comment made by the then CEO of SRC that his “greatest pride in this project will be the day I retire and am replaced by a First Nations person who has come up through the system." Post OEF, there are as many as four First Nations that are either currently running their own Band-operated farms or developing plans to initiate a start-up Band-owned and operated farm in the immediate future. All of these operations have significant land holdings and will employ band members that came up through the OEF system. At least one other Nation is exploring a partnership with a local rancher that they stated they would have never considered prior to OEF. While perhaps not the path originally envisioned by either SRC or First Nation stakeholders, this relationship did provide, at least some degree, the opportunity to “control their own destiny and their own resources in a way that is consistent with their own environmental and social values.” (Calvin Helin, author of Dances with Dependency, as referenced earlier in this report.) GOAL ALLIGNMENT If success in real estate can be determined by a single phrase – “location-location-location”, successful partnerships might also be determined by a single phrase – “compatible-goals-alignment”. While OEF was offered as a socially beneficial investment vehicle to both its financial partners and the First Nation landholders, it was further defined to its First Nations partners as an opportunity for employment, training and direct involvement in agriculture. According to the interviews with First Nations, all was well with the partnership and the compatibility in the beginning but then they appeared to go off the rails when OEF’s farming results were financially challenged. Over time as the company struggled to meet its investor’s financial goals the promises of employment and training that were made to attract First Nation partners went unfulfilled. In hindsight these seemingly compatible goals on paper were conflicted in time-lines of execution, i.e. SRC’s were short-term while FN’s ambitions would require a longer-term horizon to pay dividends. By 2014 SRC had little to show to its investors and the First nations had minimal uptake of employment or training, which seemingly contributed to the challenging relationships and the premature dissolution of this partnership. While it would seem that the goals were compatible, the timelines required to achieve them were not quite aligned. Based on the comments provided by interviewees, it is also clear that while not ‘fatal’ to the company there were a few operational factors that created challenges for OEF. First, there were opportunities for greater cultural sensitivity. This opportunities ranged from more apparent - such as the way that some managers worked with their First Nation employees to less obvious - such as comments made suggesting that OEF was “too loud” in the beginning and “too fast” and didn’t need to let all the neighbours know what it was doing. Second, OEF failed to manage expectations of its partners. Comments from interviewees included disappointment that OEF had failed to change AANDC policies and frustration that employment opportunities were going to individuals from neighbouring communities.

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Communication in general was lacking on everything from these two areas to corporate strategy. It is possible that greater inclusion of First Nations at the “decision making table” and through activities like regular Chief-to-Chief meetings (which did not happen) some of the issues related to communication and expectations would have been mitigated. Analyzing the One Earth Farms story from a strictly business perspective, there are a few things that stand out: Focusing on Strengths: OEF made many promises ranging from creating a new way of doing agriculture to best in class technology to training programs and more. Each of these promises was a significant objective. The four areas highlighted below are areas in which OEF made significant commitments, and as a result experienced challenges to their operational model. Time: Many small and medium sized factors contributed to the significance variance between what One Earth Farms set out to accomplish and what it has become. No single factor led to the demise of the grain operations of OEF and the partnerships with First Nations. That said there was a theme, or constant challenge that exacerbated many of the situations the company faced. That was “time”. The patience of venture capitalists challenged the ability of OEF to align expected results with the development of trust-based relationships, the creation of multi-year training programs, and the establishment of highly efficient operating “pods” among other things. It is difficult to state that OEF was a failure as it continues to operate in a much different form. It is also impossible to state that the model did not work because it was not permitted the time that it needed to prove itself. The challenges faced by OEF are summarized into a few headings below. Time-based expectations of investors stressed the importance of growth. In the first years success was measured in acres, specifically the number of additional acres that had been added to the rental portfolio each year. The pressure to grow was motivated by a number of factors, undoubtedly ego could have been a factor, but also, that ‘title’ was useful for marketing and raising capital. While it appeared at times that OEF had bitten off more than it could chew, ultimately, investors did not have the patience to allow the company to succeed or fail. New leadership with a new operational focus lead to the cancellation of crop-land leases and the exit from grain farming and most First Nations lands. Time was also a significant contributor to human resource challenges. Fast growth demands that labour positions are filled. While efforts were made to ensure that the “best people were hired for the job” as often stated by management, the environment simply did not allow for the time required to look for the “best”. Additionally, the labour resources that were available within the First Nations often required training or skills development before they could be fully utilized. This too required time. It is important to note that the labour that was available on short notice to One Earth Farms from its partner First Nations largely consisted of individuals who were not gainfully employed at the time. Due to the strength of the resource sector in Saskatchewan during this same period, many of the best workers were not available to OEF. Anecdotally, several of these individuals communicated to OEF staff that while they were very interested in the opportunities, they were waiting to see how things would play out with OEF before they would be willing to leave what they had already established. As observed by one of the interviewees, it needed to happen in “our” time.

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Another difficulty that was not anticipated in the beginning was the amount of reporting required of OEF as a result of Sprott Resource Corps’ involvement. OEF was audited as a public company resulting in additional administration costs and demands on management that took valuable time away from operations to focus on paperwork. Arguably, combining the time sensitivity of venture capital investments with a focus on size resulted in the wrong incentives being provide to upper level management. It leads to a focus on size over efficiency, speed over quality, and while this might be viable for short periods of time, they are not sustainable objectives over the longer term. Setting realistic management incentives are a challenge faced by businesses of all sizes in all industries. In the case of OEF, it contributed to a lack of trust among its partners and circumstances that produced poor economic results. Information Technology: the geographic disparity of OEF operations combined with the number of pieces of equipment, the number of people, and the amount of flux in the employees all created opportunities for unique and leading edge application of technology. Everything from weighing grain at the combine and at the truck and again at the bin to using iPads to give work instructions and equipment checklists to GPS tracking, real time inventory, and even taking information from equipment and putting it into databases created opportunities and challenges for OEF. The OEF IT department was creative and skilled, but did not always have access to the magnitude of funds that they would have liked. At its largest, OEF was in a position to provide guidance to equipment manufacturing companies about the needs of corporate farms as the equipment that was available at that time was targeted to large but privately held operations. For example, equipment in the units did not have the memory to store multiple days of operations, or it did not have the capacity to program in the number of fields required by OEF. Land: At the outset the goal of OEF was to get big, and to get big fast. Because of this, land acquisition was opportunistic. The first business plan that was drafted for OEF focused on the efficiencies that could be gained through the combination of several circumstances. One was partnerships with First Nations that would allow access to resources of both land and labour, another was the development of highly efficient “pods” of good quality land (both purchased and leased) that would work in a hub and spoke model sharing equipment, subject matter experts such as agronomists and labour. It took two rainy years and unseeded and un-harvested acres to see that OEF needed to be more strategic. But this presented a challenge. Due to the restrictions of the farmland security act, non-First Nation land could not be “controlled” by OEF because it was owned by SRC, which was publicly traded and therefore could have non-Canadian shareholders. Because OEF was owned by a publicly traded company, which could have shareholders who were not Canadian, OEF would not be permitted to purchase farmland in Saskatchewan (different rules in Alberta were less restrictive). OEF was in active negotiations to purchase more than one large, successful farming operation from individual(s) who were looking for an opportunity to work their way out of their operations when OEF management learned of these purchasing restrictions. Although this dampened the enthusiasm of investors who had hoped to benefit from long term increases in the value of land, the model was determined to be sufficiently strong with a base of First Nation and leased land.

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The second blow came when the Saskatchewan Farmland Security Board advised OEF that the restrictions applied to not only foreign ownership but foreign control of Saskatchewan farmland. Accordingly, by their interpretation, rental of privately owned Saskatchewan farmland by OEF was offside of the Saskatchewan Farmland Security Act. In Saskatchewan this effectively limited OEF ability to rent First Nations land, which created a significant barrier to their ability of the company to realize its “pod”-based model. That said, First Nations own some very good quality farmland and OEF was willing to work within the restrictions. Unfortunately, this is where the challenge of time exacerbated an already difficult situation. The vast majority of good quality farmland owned by First Nations in Saskatchewan is either in use by the Nation, or under rental agreements to local producers who have established positive long-term relationships with First Nations. Anecdotally, several Chiefs committed that they would make these lands available to OEF if the company was able to demonstrate itself over the long term. Wisely, they were not willing to risk putting a good relationship in jeopardy for one that was unproven. Another land based challenge that was not originally anticipated was the combination of higher than market rates that were promised early in the evolution of the company and the moving target of actual leased acres. Blaine Favel was brought on by the Sprott Resource Corp to explore agricultural opportunities that would aggregate First Nations Land and to take steps to begin to secure available acres. As noted in an interview with one of the first Chiefs to partner with One Earth Farms, the lease rates that he was paid were above market value for that quality of land they had to offer. These commitments were inherited by OEF as active farming operations began and they challenged the economics of farming on those lands. In terms of the moving target of acres, OEF worked very closely with Land Managers from its partner First Nations. In some cases OEF provided maps and spreadsheets of legal land locations, rental status, and farmed and actual acres of reserves were created by OEF and provided to Land Managers for their on-going efforts to manage and keep track of all of the Nations’ lands. The reality was that often the legal land locations were incorrect, or the rental status was not accurately documented, or was simply missing. Challenges to identify actual acres, documented payments, and to ensure that operations were actually occurring on land that both belonged to the Nation and had be rented to OEF, continued until the termination of the farming operations. In general OEF underestimated the challenges that would come with trying to “organize” or “database” First Nations land – legal land locations were incorrect even in the First Nations’ systems, records of tenants were inconsistent, the leasing process alone was a challenge. Human Resources: Human Resources were a challenge from the top to the bottom of the organizational chart. Some of this came with attempting to break new ground – and as a result no one was singularly trained for the job. Some of it came from the speed of growth and working with the people who were available and some of it came from the challenges that can come from working with people who are not used to the industry, the type of work, and even the culture of the work. For example: it could not be assumed that employees could get to site, or once there they could operate equipment (at least not on public roads). Drivers licenses were commonly lacking, full sets of equipment (coveralls, work boots, etc had to be provided because employees did not have them and in some cases did not have the funds to purchase them in advance of a first pay cheque.

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Companies like the northern mining companies have succeeded in developing courses to support their employees in learning a new industry. These include everything from workplace readiness training to personal finance training. These programs have developed over many years. Also, it cannot be underestimated that in some ways a “camp” style of work simplifies working conditions because employees are away from the potential distractions of home, family and community. OEF underestimated the challenge of finding local labour, job fairs were poorly attended, and the promise of lots of workers that came from leadership often provided individuals who were not currently employed because they did not want to be or could not be for personal or other reasons. Further, there were occasionally issues that resulted from employing people from nearby communities and bringing them to work on lands owned by a different Nation. OEF made great strides in having employees trained by equipment manufacturers, doing internal training and workplace readiness, and always focusing on hands-on-training recognizing that the people interested in working on site were often no as comfortable and ready to learn in a classroom as they would be sitting on a piece of equipment or standing in a field. However, it was difficult to provide the amount of in-the-seat training necessary without putting the company at risk of damage to expensive equipment, or costly operational errors – such as seeding an entire field with plugged drills. It was also difficult to have people take ownership – there were no direct financial consequences for ignoring an alarm or missing a pass or working the wrong field entirely. This is not unique to OEF, but a challenge that any employer faces. However, in agriculture where employees can be widely dispersed and operating on their own for long periods of time, it proved difficult to monitor and can be challenging to catch problems in time. In Saskatchewan and Alberta OEF was competing with oil and gas wages for good workers. The agriculture sector does not have the margins to compete with that industry in terms of wages and contributions to communities. The combination of “new skills” for the labour market – for example farm management vs operations and operating highly technical equipment with a tight timeline and individuals who require additional skills training before they are fully job-ready is really a perfect storm. New skills require extra time, additional preparation prior to employment requires extra time, and as noted above, less than optimal lands require additional time. Yet, based on comments from individuals interviewed, it is clear that while there were certainly deficiencies, many of the efforts to train and employ First Nations individuals were moving in the right direction but they needed more time. It was quickly apparent that training alone was not going to be enough. Mentors were needed once training was done, and while training was in session skilled workers were needed to oversee the on-going work that needed to be done. Based on the training plans developed within the InRoads to Agriculture Program and other OEF training initiatives, it would realistically take 3-5 years to train an equipment operator to a point where they would be fully self-sufficient and confident in their role and responsibilities. Training someone to a management level role from the starting point of an operator would take between 5-10 years. That kind of time was simply not made available.

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There was constant pressure from First Nation leadership to create more jobs. Job fairs were routinely held in the communities of First Nation partners, but attendance was often scarce or non-existent. Incentives for lower level employees were a challenge as well. Accountability was something that was starting to develop, but there was an atmosphere of “its not my problem” and “so what” that in the early seasons created operational inefficiencies. This ranged from not taking care of camps to not taking notice of alerts in seeders indicating blocked nozzles and resulting in unplanted strips in fields. CONCLUSION It would be inaccurate to say that politics played no role in the struggles that OEF faced, but on its own, this was not insurmountable. Short election terms made it challenging in some locations for OEF to gain or even keep lands that they were leasing. Efforts to increase acreage were slowed by the lack of a timely delivery on OEF promises to provide equity for partner First Nations. From the beginning OEF sought to be a socially responsible partner and took many strides to delivery on this but when financial efficiencies began to be challenged, there was little empathy for these struggles on the side of its partners. In considering what can be learned from the OEF experience, and specifically, how First Nations interested in business partnerships with corporations could improve their chances of a successful business partnership, there are certainly things that have been learned. It is critical when entering into a partnership to understand the timelines and time-based expectations of a potential partner. It is next to impossible for an outside entity to experience success in hiring local labour without community level support from leadership, community organizations or others. Whatever the resource is that the community is bringing to the partnership, know it well. Detailed and accurate documentation will protect both the community and the partner. Despite the fact that grain operations and some cattle operations ceased, the Nations involved were protected by OEFs insistence that they use AANDC agreements. When contracts were terminated the terms of these agreements ensured that payments were made and obligations fulfilled. Land rental rates for First Nations throughout Saskatchewan have also increased (and have held) as a result of OEF. OEF played a role in strengthening the tools of First Nations land managers. Nations were provided with a formula by which their rent was calculated which some have admitted to continuing to use. Spreadsheets of lands including legal land locations, farmable acres, and other details were developed and provided to land managers. In some cases maps of lands were also provided. This new information has help to First Nation gain a more empowered position when dealing with outside economic interests and has also helped identify First Nation-led strategies, that when used in the future, can help First Nations achieve a more secure place in prairie agriculture.