Reading Time: 4 minutes Every partnership today must start with a strong partnership agreement. There are no exceptions Not every decision is meant to or should last a lifetime. A partnership can be the perfect option for you and your family, or for you and perhaps a cousin or another farmer who shares your objectives. But that doesn’t mean […] Read more
“For many families and individuals, a partnership is exactly the right way to go. But if you start wrong, it can get ugly real fast.”
Covering Your Assets
Reading Time: < 1 minute It was as much luck as good planning that saved them hundreds of thousands of dollars when the Gregorys’ barn caught fire last July. Now they’re warning other farmers to learn their lesson The 9,000 square-foot honey house and storage building that Paul Gregory and his brother Lee and their families owned as part of […] Read more
“ I’d Never Tell You To Ignore Your Accountant, But…”
Reading Time: 2 minutes Experts see succession through their own lenses. What your accountant thinks is best for taxes might not jibe with advice from your lawyer or retirement planner. You’ll see it below from five experts who talked to us after one succession workshop hosted by the Canadian Association of Farm Advisors. The only point they all agree […] Read more
Top my top 10 list
Reading Time: 2 minutes It’s never been tougher to predict the future of agriculture. Amid the very real challenges, we can all agree there are also some potential opportunities ahead. But who is going to seize them, what will their farms look like, and will their lives be anything like the lives of today’s farmers? Do what I did. […] Read more
Three agri-businesses share how they successfully used mentoring to build success
Reading Time: 3 minutes It used to be that mentoring had to mean a more experienced person helps a less experienced person develop in a specific capacity. It still can mean that. Now, however, companies are taking mentorship much further by formalizing the process and even using a “bottoms-up” approach where younger, tech savvy employees can share what they […] Read more
Your business and personal strategies
Reading Time: 2 minutes You have worked hard to provide for yourself, your family and your business legacy. Make sure you have the right types and the right amounts of insurance Operating most farms is highly capital intensive. If you are like many farmers, you are asset rich and cash poor. You pour all of your hard earned money […] Read more
Here’s what Jim and Phillip Callaghan experienced — and what they learned — when they took a business approach to their farm expansion
Reading Time: 2 minutes Their goal was clear, just as it is on many farms across Canada. With growing families, brothers Jim and Phillip Callaghan needed to expand their Peterborough, Ont. home farm to generate additional income. In this case, the Callaghans are dairy farmers, so it made most sense to them to double their milk herd to 300 […] Read more
A first-hand account of how a succession plan could have helped
Reading Time: 3 minutes A crisis can seemingly jump out of nowhere and threaten any business’s operations, especially for business owners like farmers or ranchers. Having a crisis plan in place to deal with such an emergency can help maintain your business’s operations, and also ensure its longevity. Take for example the case of the Doe family. This is […] Read more
How an RESP can help transfer the farm to the next generation
Reading Time: 2 minutes Farm advisor Ted Clysdale has farming friends with a common problem. What isn’t common, he says, is a possible solution. Clysdale’s friends have three children entering their teen years, and the parents are struggling to find ways to double or triple their farm income so the children can potentially join the family business. Instead of […] Read more
A healthy succession plan starts with an honest self-assessment
Reading Time: 2 minutes It doesn’t mean it was easy. Bruce Schmaltz has thought carefully about when to step aside. As with most farms, DynAgra is about family too, not just business. Bruce himself came on board as the third generation in the 1980s when the company began selling fertilizer and became known as Beiseker Agri Services Ltd. Bruce […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
