Reading Time: 5 minutes Losing a dealership chain creates distance between manufacturer and customer. As farmers get more sophisticated, the companies are exploring new strategies to bridge that divide “Claas to open corporate dealership chain,” the headline above the brief news item said in a European farm magazine this spring. But beneath that simple announcement lay a difficult marketing […] Read more
Chain reactions
Figuring out AgriStability
Reading Time: 4 minutes This important federal program remains poorly understood on too many farms — perhaps on your farm too. Here’s why it may prove so relevant Across Canada, farmers are wondering if AgriStability still has a fit on their farms. As I wrote in the last issue of Country Guide, government funding of AgriStability has been significantly […] Read more
Making a comeback
New Holland’s restructured management team has launched an aggressive plan to push the company back into the spotlight
Reading Time: 4 minutes New Holland is back,” Abe Hughes II, the company’s vice-president of sales and marketing for North America declared to a group of farm writers in late April at the company’s North American headquarters in Pennsylvania. It was just one sentence, but it is worth coming over 1,500 miles to hear. In a very real sense, […] Read moreThe storm’s aftermath
Reading Time: 4 minutes The heavy rain turned to hail. From the living room window Jeff saw pea-sized stones hit his front lawn. Elaine carried their little boy crying in from the bedroom. “He’s terrified,” she said. “Come here,” Jeff said, taking the frightened toddler in his arms and holding him up to the window. “See? This is why […] Read more
Machinery Guide
On more and more farms, the grain cart is as vital to getting the crop out of the field as the combine. That’s increasingly true regardless of farm size, with many smaller operations pencilling out the advantages that come from their enhanced efficiency. Whether your operation is expanding or specializing, grain cart manufacturers are tweaking their designs to take those efficiencies to new heights, as you’ll see from this month’s brief survey of some of the newest models.
Reading Time: 2 minutes J&M LEANER As farms get bigger, so do combine headers, and one challenge growers face in the field is overlaps between the grain cart and the combine. But J&M grain carts have an answer, with the Leaner series for 1,130-, 1,250- and 1,500-bushel capacities. The Leaner is an extender that is bolted on to […] Read moreThe stars align
Reading Time: 3 minutes In the middle of August, my neighbour Vern Bunton and his son were leaning on the box of my half-ton down by the mailbox enjoying a visit, when I made a polite remark about the lovely crop of beans young Matthew had grown on 50 acres across the road. This was Matthew’s first crop and […] Read more
The storm’s aftermath
Reading Time: 4 minutes The heavy rain turned to hail. From the living room window Jeff saw pea-sized stones hit his front lawn. Elaine carried their little boy crying in from the bedroom. “He’s terrified,” she said. “Come here,” Jeff said, taking the frightened toddler in his arms and holding him up to the window. “See? This is why […] Read more
Looking for what doesn’t change
Reading Time: 2 minutes I’ve said it before, but it remains true. The big thing non-farmers don’t understand about farming is that so much of it hinges on decision-making. It’s one of the constants in agriculture.Farmers wrestle with more tough decisions in a year than many of their city cousins face in their entire careers, and not just because […] Read more
The unexpected house guest
Reading Time: 4 minutes Donna heard a knock at the door and frenzied shouting. “Are you home? Can we come in?” Donna’s daughter-in-law Elaine was carrying her toddler under her arm. The little boy looked happy to see his grandma, but Elaine was red-faced and frantic. “That chimney! We’ll get rabies! In our own home.” Donna had never seen […] Read more
10,000 years of bad food
Reading Time: 3 minutes My grandfather was a part-time medical doctor and a full-time food nut. He’s been gone for 40 years now but I still think of him pretty much every time I open the fridge. He hopped from one loony idea to another over the course of his career, lecturing his patients and every member of his […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
