Reading Time: 3 minutes Financial markets began to stabilize within days of the U.K.’s surprise Brexit vote this past June, but that doesn’t mean the vote has been shrugged off either by the big exchanges or by the markets that set the prices for farm commodities. It does mean, however, that the world is coming to terms with the […] Read more
Brexit – good or bad for us?
While the ag sector looks for stability in currency markets, short-term price spikes and long-term trade agreements may get overlooked
Counting the full value of farming
After years of talking, ALUS enviro-payments are finally going mainstream, with 722 farmers already getting cheques
Reading Time: 8 minutes To get an idea of a farm’s financial health, we check the balance sheet. It’s straightforward. On the one side are liabilities like loans and outstanding bills to suppliers. On the other are assets like inventory, cash, land, buildings and equipment. Then you simply subtract the liabilities from the assets to find net shareholders’ equity, […] Read more
A farm for all
For the Burns family, the goal has always been a farm with a place for the entire family. Now it’s the reality too
Reading Time: 5 minutes John Burns had spent eight years getting a PhD in chemistry and two years working at the Department of National Defence in Kingston, Ont., but his Saskatchewan farm roots began to beckon and he jumped at the chance to get out of the lab and do some off-campus teaching, which led him to the area […] Read more
It’s their job
More farmers like John and Kristi Burns have family and non-family members working side by side, making it vital to set clear job expectations
Reading Time: 8 minutes Job descriptions for new farm employees help them understand how the farm operates, what their job is all about, and what the employer expects of them. But family members working on the farm often think they don’t need one for themselves. They’ve been on the farm forever, after all, so they already know what to […] Read more
The business of being young
Ryan Boyd believes regenerative agriculture is the right strategy to get him off the expansion treadmill
Reading Time: 5 minutes About 10 years ago, Ryan Boyd came to his father Jim with some new ideas, and Jim knew it was time to listen. Ryan talked about a new strategy, adopting regenerative and sustainable approaches in order to enhance their productivity. “Dad was more than willing to try something else,” Ryan says. “He’d always believed the […] Read more
A marketing strategy for stored grain
Is it worthwhile to store your grain on the farm while you wait for commodity prices to rise?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Storing grain on the farm can be a good marketing strategy because, if managed carefully, it can increase a producer’s profits, but it’s important to have a handle on your storage and opportunity costs to assess if it’s actually going to put money in the bank. The capital costs of storage vary depending on whether […] Read more
Is it enough to rotate your herbicides?
Integrated weed management can slow herbicide resistance, but rotation is just one piece
Reading Time: 6 minutes Integrated weed management (IWM) is not rotating herbicides or modes of action. IWM is combining one of more different weed management techniques, such as chemical, cultural, physical or biological weed control. Some IWM methods are easy to implement, such as making sure you select good, certified seed that will grow vigorously and out-compete weeds. Seeding […] Read more
Inspired to make a difference
They’re growing the kids that are going to defeat world hunger
Reading Time: 6 minutes Let’s just say that for these four Canadian high school students, the act of sitting on the floor and dipping their hands into a communal bowl of rice shared with 75 other people was an uncomfortable experience. Yet this way of eating is routine for millions of the world’s poor. “I only had to go […] Read more
Location, location
The Spenst family are farmers first, but with a farm that extends right to the store counter
Reading Time: 8 minutes When Garry Spenst and his sons, Paul and Garreth, heard that the Real Canadian Superstore was coming to Winkler, Man. they took the biggest gamble of their lives. The family paid $100,000 to buy the lot right next door. Soon, they were building their family-owned retail meat store, Spenst Brothers Premium Meats, a project that […] Read more
Rye takes an innovation jump
Hybrid varieties and new specialty markets are breathing new life into what had become the poor cousin of the Prairie cereal family
Reading Time: 5 minutes Some new varieties and new markets may signal the end of a long decline in Western Canada’s rye production. The 1990s started with rye area pushing the 1.3-million-acre mark, yet this year only 220,000 acres went into the ground. But some of those acres were planted with new hybrid varieties that have produced some eye-popping […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
