Know what? What happened?
*sends link*
I tap it, and an article loads. As I read the title, my heart sinks.
VerTerra Systems acquired by SynGrow Global in multi-billion-dollar deal.
Holy shit. This isnotgood. Not goodat all.
My company has just been swallowed whole by one of the largest agriculture-business conglomerates in the world.
My stomach turns as my eyes skirt over the article, but I can barely take it in.
SynGrow operates worldwide, and they have platforms stacked on platforms, all built to serve corporate-scale clients with budgets big enough to erase consequences. They almost bought VerTerra a couple years ago, but the founders refused the deal as they were unwilling to hand over a system built with care to an entity known for flattening everything it touches into something faster, broader, and easier to monetize.
They buy companies like ours to absorb the tech, strip away nuance, and fold it into a larger machine designed for scale above all else. It’s one size fits everyone, whether it should or not.
So what the fuck happened?
This means we are now going to be serving clients at a level where convenience, speed, and results matter over everything else, while environmental impact becomes a problem they can cover with money, and sustainability becomes branding.
The smaller, Canadian-owned company where I carved out my place and passion in this world is no more. Where long-term thinking meant growth, where farms and processors felt like partners instead of data points, and where I felt like I was truly making a difference.
I grew up around family farms in the smallest province in the country. I watched people work themselves to exhaustion just to stay afloat, and I’ve seen how easily they could be pressured into contracts that favoured everyone else. That’s what pulled me towards this field in the first place. Sustainability means protection, and building systems that help people keep what they’ve worked so hard for. It means resisting the urge to strip land, labour, and time down to their last usable ounce.
And now… if I stay in this job, I lose the reason I chose this work in the first place.
Fuck.
THIRTEEN
My eyes scanthe wall of hose clamps until they land on the sizes I need, and I grab a few of each, knowing I’m going to need more than I think I will. Between coolant hoses on tractors and loaders, fuel return lines on older equipment, and drain lines on the wash system, I feel like I’m in this aisle of the farm supply store more than anywhere else.
I grab the hydraulic fittings I also need, then turn to head for the front counter to pick up the humidity gauges we ordered in.
But as I round the corner of the aisle, I stop.
Well, fuck.
Ashton looks up from the fencing supplies, and a smirk slides into place when his eyes meet mine. “Hey, Silas.”
I give him a short nod and angle my body to move past him, but he steps into my path.
“Long time no see,” he says as his eyes drop to my dirty boots and jeans, and the clamps and fittings in my hands. “Still in the farm life, I see.”
I glare at him as my grip tightens on the equipment in my hands and my heart thumps harder. I haven’t seen Ashton in years. I know he visits his family in town, but I don’t know wherehe lives now, what he’s doing, or anything about him anymore. And that’s how I want it to stay.
“Tia, this is my old friend Silas,” Ashton says, his smirk shifting into a smile that could almost be sincere if I didn’t know any better.
I slide my gaze to the tiny blonde woman standing next to him, and she looks up at me with a wide smile.
“Hi!” she says brightly. “I’m Tia, his fiancée.”
“Hi,” I answer, then shift my focus past Ashton and step sideways again to leave.
But he lifts a hand and presses it to my shoulder to stop me. The urge to drop everything from my hands and punch him rises fast, and I barely hold it together as I flick my eyes to him with a clenched jaw.
He chuckles and lowers his hand. “You always were a man of few words. I see nothing’s changed here.” He tilts his head slightly as his eyes roam over my backwards hat, down to my hoodie with holes in the sleeves. “Well, almost nothing. No one wants to stick around for dirt and diesel, eh?”
