Reading Time: 3 minutes Their parents can probably be forgiven for assuming that a farmer growing five acres of strawberries in southern Ontario can t possibly have anything to teach a young farmer breaking into large-scale production on the Prairies. Even Christie Young, executive director with Ontario s FarmStart, describes her ideas about small-scale, new farmers as unique. But […] Read more
NEW FARM LESSONS
TOO INVESTED
Reading Time: 8 minutes For years, if you saw the word agriculture in the GLOBE AND MAIL s Report on Business, you could be sure the next word would be crisis, disaster or bailout. But now the story is different. In fact, it could hardly be more different, with ag today being paired with boom, profit and growth. Overnight, […] Read more
Retire Easier
Reading Time: 6 minutes The very nature of farming can squash all of a farmer s best intentions for off-farm investing. Busy schedules, fluctuating incomes and the constant demand for new technology can each put the reins on even a modest plan. Yet for more farmers, off-farm investing is becoming an essential business strategy, both so they can inject […] Read more
All Together Now
Reading Time: 9 minutes We aren t alone. All around the world, farmers are searching for ways to succeed in a business environment that s more intense than anything we ve ever seen. Yes, margins have been tight before, but now markets are just more volatile, input costs are soaring and the price of land is rising beyond belief. […] Read more
Fair Versus Equal
Reading Time: 12 minutes Even with professional help, half the families that farm adviser Don Forbes meets can t get past what is emerging as an ever bigger obstacle in farm succession planning. How do you treat farming versus non-farming children? Ironically, while the issue has always been fraught, it used to be easier to deal with it when […] Read more
Succession Primer
Reading Time: 5 minutes ” ACKNOWLEDGE THE SIZE OF THE JOB Leaving a leadership and ownership role in any business requires preplanning. Leaving a farm business can be even more difficult. It s no longer a simple transaction, says Larry Morin, an independent farm business adviser based in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta. who specializes in agricultural succession planning. Mom and […] Read more
Standing Up To Change
Reading Time: 6 minutes Wayne Black’s day has been life defining. His father John recently sold the family’s dairy herd, so on this particular morning, the father and son milked only a few cows. Although the decision to sell the cows had been made months ago, this was when the reality was sinking in. Wayne Black’s days would no […] Read more
Vital Statistics
Reading Time: 9 minutes There are almost as many financial ratios as seed varieties, and choosing which are most meaningful for your farm — and most helpful for how you manage for success — can be more than difficult. It can be positively head spinning. Should you track current ratio or working capital? Is ROA a good guide, or […] Read more
The Third Way
Reading Time: 7 minutes Let’s say that you are thinking about retiring but you have no family members who want to farm. If you’re like most Canadian farmers facing this prospect, you will consider just two options, either to sell the farm or to rent it out. Or let’s say you are thinking of leaving land to a family […] Read more
Succession: How Do We Start?
Reading Time: 6 minutes I was 22 and I had somehow scraped up enough courage to ask my parents about the possibility of succession. It’s a moment carved in my memory. There I was sitting in the kitchen of the farmhouse with my soon-to-be husband, my Dad and our provincial ag rep. The ag rep asked what we wanted […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
