Reading Time: 5 minutes When they’d finished discussing their harvest plans for the day, everyone on the Hanson farm had got up and set their coffee mugs in the second-hand dishwasher Jeff’s wife, Elaine, had bought for Father’s Day. Then they all set out for the field. “For the love of God, don’t break anything,” Jeff Hanson had called […] Read more
Hanson Acres: Roll that window down, breathe some good Prairie…
Sometimes it’s best when life on the farm doesn’t go exactly to plan
Editor’s Note: More than a crystal ball
Reading Time: 2 minutes In all of Canada’s history, will this be the most important winter ever for scoping out what you’ll need your farm to look like in five and in 20 years? I’m always saying that the thing consumers don’t know about farming is that it’s a life of decision- making. When you factor in the value […] Read more
Hanson Acres: “How did they know that we’d be here?”
Jeff was exhausted. Elaine was fed up. It was time to escape
Reading Time: 4 minutes Some guys go to the beach. Some guys go camping in the mountains. I just keep on spraying.” Jeff Hanson was talking to himself as he walked out to the dugout to load the sprayer at 4:30 in the morning. Ever since the Hansons finished seeding, anytime it wasn’t windy, Jeff or the Hansons’ employee […] Read more
Editor’s Note: A test to restore faith in the farm
Reading Time: 2 minutes Two questions keep many farm families awake at night. Can your next generation be reasonably expected to preserve and grow the farm’s net value? Could you do it, facing what they face? As I wrote some four years ago in this space, “Fortunately, science can help.” Every issue of Country Guide deals with this issue. […] Read more
Editor’s Note: A valuable change in our thinking
Reading Time: 2 minutes Reinventing the farm can feel like a concept that’s being pushed down the throat of today’s agriculture. Instead let’s call it what it really is: “reinventing the farmer.” Change is never simple on the farm. It’s so much easier to keep doing things the way you’ve always done them than adopt something new. “Easier, and […] Read more
Hanson Acres: Coming home isn’t always just as you imagined it
Fresh off the plane from Germany, Donna takes another trip when she sees the house
Reading Time: 5 minutes After nearly a month in Germany helping her daughter take care of a new baby, Donna Hanson was happy to see her husband at the bottom of the airport staircase when she arrived at the Regina airport. It was good to be home. Until Dale shouted up, “Welcome home, Grandma!” Donna was mortified. She looked […] Read more
The gender-neutral farm
What can you do to remove gendered barriers and build a stronger, more resilient industry?
Reading Time: 7 minutes There have been a lot of conversations about women’s roles in agriculture over the past few years. You’ve read many of them in these very pages. Here’s my conversation starter: if we had gender-neutral farms in Canada, what would that even look like in practice? Would it generate more and better opportunities for women? Would […] Read more
Hanson Acres: When it isn’t only the weather that changes overnight
"Let’s get this show on the road,” Mark said, not realizing what road it would turn out to be
Reading Time: 5 minutes Jeff Hanson stood in the May morning sun, eyeing up his seeding crew. “This is going to be something else,” he muttered. Mark Edwards, the Hansons’ farm employee, winked at Jeff. “Let’s get this show on the road.” Normally, Jeff, his wife, his parents and Mark worked together to get the crop in the ground […] Read more
Editor’s Note: Making up your mind in 2022
It’s what people who aren’t business leaders rarely understand. Leadership means knowing how to make big decisions when you don’t have full information, like this year
Reading Time: 2 minutes I have been asking myself this question all spring. I’m sure you have been too. Five years from now, when we look back at 2022, who are we going to say made the best decisions? Who pulled the right levers? What choices turned out to be the right decisions? Which turned out to be not […] Read more
Hanson Acres: Who knows what a day will bring on the farm?
When it comes to land, 'they’re not making any more of it'
Reading Time: 4 minutes As soon as he hung up the phone, Jeff knew he couldn’t make this decision on his own. He called his wife. “Elaine, could you come out to the shop?” “Sure,” she said. “What do you need? Should I put on coveralls?” “I need help, but you don’t need coveralls,” Jeff said. “That’s mysterious,” Elaine […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
