Coaldale-area farmer, Chris Perry, shares World Economic Forum experience

Posted on April 9, 2026 by Sunny South News

By Kristine Jean
Sunny South News

Coaldale-area potato farmer Chris Perry recently shared about his experience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.    

Perry, co-founder and president of CKP Farms Ltd., near the Hamlet of Chin, east of Coaldale, was invited by PepsiCo to participate in the 2026 World Economic Forum in Switzerland, where he contributed to two different panels and conversations around the future of food systems.

“It was a real honour,” said Perry of the opportunity to speak in Davos. “We do a lot of data-driven agriculture which works around the data ecosystem (and) artificial intelligence opportunities to do better with the resources that we use on the farm, and then also talking about opportunities (like) blockchain and tokenization … they are tools right now to start incentivizing some better practices that are aligning with customers. Ultimately, this is about the customer choosing these opportunities,” said Perry. 

At Davos, the first panel Perry participated in was PepsiCo’s signature Davos event called “Farmers First: Scaling a More Resilient Food System.” This panel was designed to put farmers at the center of the conversation, as partners in shaping solutions. 

That panel was a farmer’s breakfast hosted by Pepsico, that invited three farmers to share their thoughts on building a more resilient global food system – Thibaud Deschamps from France, Maria Vitoria Vasconcelos from Brazil and Perry from Canada, each who focus on different crops in different geographical locations.  

Perry noted his farm was invited to participate at Davos, as the result of collaboration and work with PepsiCo over the past 20 years. While he has had involvement previously with conferences like COP21 in Paris in 2015, that focused on sustainability, this was his first time participating at the World Economic Forum. 

“It was an incredible event.  I really appreciated that opportunity to engage on that level,” said Perry. “The first panel was really around a lot of regenerative agriculture. They asked us, as a farmer, putting on your global farmer hat, what are some opportunities that you want to talk about,” he added, noting within that conversation he shared five main points.  

Perry’s first point was that soil health is the foundation of everything. 

“We work a lot on that and really, soil health – adding resilience to soil so it has the ability to sustain the future and we don’t (spoil) the land so that it can’t produce in the future,” said Perry, noting the importance of soil health. “How do you encourage that. If it may cost more, how do we as a society still incentivize that.”

He also spoke about risk-reward, mitigation, the data ecosystem and his last point was on blockchain and tokenization.

The second panel that Perry participated in was called “Partners in Possibility: Collaborating for Resilient Food Systems”. For that panel, he joined alongside Jim Andrew (Chief Sustainability Officer, PepsiCo), Andrew Walton (Chief Sustainability Officer, Lloyds Banking Group), and Jan Christoph Kalbath (Global Head of Sustainability and Energy Transition, Louis Dreyfus Company). 

The second panel discussion shone a macro lens on the food system. 

“So that (panel) was a macro lens – how do we talk about responsibility across the food chain and sharing what that means,” explained Perry, noting he shared about his blockchain and tokenization ideas and how they work, how they can share value across this chain to incentivize what people want to see from a sustainability standpoint.

In addition to contributing to the World Economic Forum (WEF), there were a couple of things Perry took note of, from his first WEF experience. 

“They loved engaging with the farmer … on what is a primary producer’s role have to play in this,” said Perry. “Even though we’re a really small part of it individually on that, when you think about the scale of all the farmers – from a two acre farm in India, to us as a six thousand acre farm in Alberta to 100,000 acre farm in America, we are a huge part, and you scale that system we become a really big part.”

He noted how farmers are ready to engage in some of these conversations – in an open, honest conversation about how do they make this work for the betterment of everybody. 

Perry shared his opinion on the WEF and his participation at Davos. 

“Those are some pretty cool, meaningful conversations,” said Perry.  “Super engaged and why not a venue like that to have the people that are influential around this (topic). Have an opportunity to get together in a space where you can have 10, 15 meetings and do something about it,” he added, pointing out some  next steps, following his return from the WEF.  

“I came home with action – I have follow-up to (do). There is follow-up with the blockchain tokenization idea, there’s follow-up on the risk mitigation and the data ecosystem,” said Perry. “That really resonated with some people that had the ability and the influence at (their) level, to help make that difference – and they do want the voice of the farmer at the table.”