Reading Time: 5 minutes The reasons for wanting to diversify the farming operation are almost as diverse as the opportunities themselves. On many farms, it’s because expansion is so costly at today’s land prices, so the only way to grow is to intensify. Or it may be because there are more generations needing to draw income from the operation. […] Read more
Finding the right agricultural niche
Is niche diversification really the right strategy for your farm? Your best answer may come from answering this: ‘How driven are you?’
A new credit model for producers
Input Capital makes farm loans, but only if you promise them a share of what you produce
Reading Time: 5 minutes Input Capital is a Saskatchewan-based, TSX-traded, public company that is introducing commodity streaming to farmers to finance new and growing operations or even to achieve production goals or yield potential. Streaming-financing isn’t brand new as a concept, but it is quite new to agriculture. It is more often seen in the mining industry where production […] Read more
Real-time financial management for farmers
Is it good, or too good to be true?
Reading Time: 5 minutes It sounds like a dream come true, placing current financial data at the fingertips of everyone involved in the farming enterprise so you can make better, more efficient on-the-spot decisions at critical crunch times. And it might not be a pipe dream any longer. “It’s just the way the world is working,” says Lance Stockbrugger, […] Read more
Succession planning: Deciding who gets to farm
The buzz these days says that succession is a journey, not an event. But who has the map?
Reading Time: 6 minutes An entire industry has built up to support farm succession planning. And for good reason. With a typical farm in Canada worth millions of dollars and requiring numerous staff, and with so many farms having related businesses and supporting two or more families, transition of the business to the next generation involves a lot more […] Read more
Taking the first steps in succession planning
Reading Time: 2 minutes Are you getting more and more convinced that it’s time for succession planning for your own farm? If so, here are some thoughts from the experts on how to get started, beginning with the most important question of all: What does our retirement look like? “The retiring couple has to have a focused discussion on […] Read more
Take a detour?
For some farms, there are big wins when the next generation gets work experience off the farm before coming back home
Reading Time: 7 minutes Take a look across the country and you’ll see myriad ways that farmers become farmers, and just about as many opinions on the right way and the wrong way to go about it. Good farm succession advice is abundant, as well as checklists to work through, seminars to attend, and even government resources to help […] Read more
Proving It
Reading Time: 6 minutes I should make it clear from the start that when I set out to write about value chains, I was more than a tad skeptical. In my experience, value chains were nothing but a load of jargon, and the only reason we keep hearing anything about them at all is that consultants haven’t yet burned […] Read more
Oooh, Aaah, Ogema (Saskatchewan, That Is)
Reading Time: 6 minutes By the time you get 70 miles due south of Regina, you know what to expect. The landscape is as open in front of you as it is behind, marked only with occasional crossroads that once in a while still struggle to maintain their names and their status as villages, showing how once, a long […] Read more
Focus Groups
Reading Time: 5 minutes Do you really want to get involved? You’re already busier than ever and it’s awfully tempting to simply say no. But then, focus groups are a major way for companies and other groups — even governments — to make sure they deliver what farmers want, so it would be good for them to get the […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
