Growing up as the oldest of four daughters on a mixed farm in east-central Saskatchewan, Danielle Graff was encouraged by her parents to go to university from an early age. She chose a career in law, and her path led her back to the industry that helped shape her. Now a partner at MLT Aikins, where she leads their Technology, Intellectual Property and Privacy practice, and an EMILI board member, Danielle has an infectious enthusiasm for working with innovative businesses in the agriculture sector on the Canadian prairies.
Describe your job in a few sentences.
I’m a technology lawyer that works with innovative businesses in the ag sector that are looking for new opportunities to revolutionize their operations or the sector overall, whether that’s on a small scale or large scale. A lot of my work is in the space around the use of data to drive innovation.
The MLT Aikins team more broadly provides a full range of services to support ag businesses using our extensive experience, deep technical knowledge, and true awareness of emerging issues, challenges and opportunities in this sector. We work hard to be “Western Canada’s Agriculture Innovation Partner.”
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
The first thing I really wanted to do was be a figure skater. My ultimate childhood dream, though, was to run a store with my sisters. I still want to do that someday.
What brought you to your current role?
One of the things my sisters and I heard repeatedly growing up was, “Go to university, get letters behind your name, don’t be a farmer.” My parents really pushed us off the farm. Law and its integration with business was interesting to me, but I didn’t really understand what it meant to be a lawyer before starting law school, so it’s been a fun journey in terms of learning what a lawyer does and the important role that a lawyer can have. And it’s also awesome that in doing so I found my way back to the industry that means so much to me and is so much a part of my family. I have these skills, and while I’m not on the farm day-in and day-out, I still get to work in the sector.
How do digital agriculture and agtech play a role in your current job?
My role is to support agtech. I identify opportunities and risks in order to help businesses create, protect and build value in their ideas. I help businesses find ways to bring forward innovation and respond to the needs of an evolving ag sector, including using technology in efficient ways and finding the right corporate structures and collaborators to support that innovation. I also help them identify and manage risks along the way. I see myself as a supporting role in this field.
What are some of the opportunities you see in the agtech sector right now?
I would like to see more collaboration, especially in the true startup space, to bring different ideas together. I would like to see more opportunities for collaboration, especially because I think we can go further, faster if we’re not stuck in traditional thinking about ownership of intellectual property or traditional business models. I think that’s a huge opportunity and could change how we invest in innovation, and I think there needs to be willingness on the part of everybody involved in the space to do that.
What is your favorite part about working in digital agriculture?
I’m a farm kid. So when I get to work on something interesting in agtech that is at a point I can share, I get excited to share it with my dad and get his feedback on the innovations that are coming down the pipeline. Obviously, I’m not divulging client secrets so the discussions are high level, but I’m grateful just to be able to have that touchpoint back to my upbringing and to be involved in a sector that is so important to my family.
I moved to Manitoba from Saskatchewan about a year and a half ago looking for opportunities to grow my business and my practice area in technology and innovation. When it comes to those kinds of opportunities people usually think of Toronto or Vancouver, but I realized quickly I wasn’t willing to leave the Prairies. I am excited to be in Manitoba now and bullish on the opportunities here. I want to support businesses that see that too and want to live and work and grow on the Prairies. I think it’s really cool that I get to do that here.
What is something that surprised you when you started working in digital agriculture?
Maybe it’s not a surprise, but just an acknowledgement of how innovative farmers are. When people think of agriculture, I think they still think of a farmer in a tractor driving in the field. They don’t normally think about all the other ancillary pieces that support ag. They don’t think about ag as an innovative sector. And so, maybe the surprise really is how far advanced and how open to change the ag sector really is.
When you get to see the innovations coming and you see the evolution of equipment and farm practices, ag is changing at such a rapid pace. I think that’s really impressive. I think more people need to know and appreciate that, because it will get them excited about it and support it and perhaps put more money into driving that innovation. If they take a closer look, they’ll realize that ag is not old-fashioned. It’s cutting edge.
Why would you say that digital agriculture is more important now than ever?
We need to feed the world, so we need efficient and innovative ways to do that. Farming has to continue evolving because of the way that the world has evolved. And so fundamentally it comes down to us needing to feed the world.
What’s the most interesting thing you see happening in digital agriculture right now?
Ag data is a piece that I find really interesting. Key questions include ownership of data, including aggregated data,, what protections need to be in place for sharing when there’s no legislative framework, and what compensation producers should receive with respect to sharing that data. I think having a structure around collection, use and disclosure of ag data like we have with personal information would be really helpful in facilitating sharing and protection of ag data, but that currently does not exist. I think that it will be really interesting to see how this continues to evolve, especially because data is so important for driving innovation.
This profile is part of EMILI’s This is Agriculture series, highlighting talented and diverse individuals across the digital agriculture sector. While individuals working in agriculture come from a variety of backgrounds, they share a common interest in growing and strengthening Canadian agriculture to ensure an environmentally and economically sustainable future for generations to come.