It used to be mainly the East’s hort sector. Now, red tape over foreign workers is causing red ink for farmers in the very heart of the country, like Saskatchewan’s Mark Knox
Reading Time: 6 minutes Mark Knox is a beekeeper. He and his wife Janice have been keeping bees and harvesting honey for over 25 years now in Saskatchewan, where bees are serious business. The Knoxes are serious too. With 3,500 hives, the Knoxes are among the 10 largest operations in the province. They run that business northeast of Nipawin, […] Read moreHelp wanted
Farm credit
While it looks like free money, it takes discipline and lots of record-keeping to get the new carbon credits. Still, if there’s a cheque, and it’s got some zeroes…
With more farmers on the prowl to create new revenue streams, this might be the right time to take a look at an invisible commodity that farmers create simply by doing what they’re already doing.
Reading Time: 9 minutes Alberta has only 10 per cent of Canada’s population, but 40 per cent of our national carbon emissions. With those statistics in mind it isn’t surprising that in 2007 Alberta was the first province to introduce greenhouse gas legislation targeting utilities and other regulated companies known as large final emitters. These businesses can comply with […] Read moreWhat Is It Young People Want Anyway?
Reading Time: 5 minutes As questions go, this isn t exactly new. What do young people want? Every generation has wondered at the behaviour of their young, and every age has questioned the wisdom of its children s long-term goals. Granted, it doesn t help that the question sometimes gets asked with sarcasm in the voice and a raised […] Read more
NEW FARM LESSONS
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
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
Something About The Weather
Reading Time: 7 minutes “Upon closer inspection, recent temperature trends strongly suggest that Saskatchewan is not getting much hotter, but rather ‘less cold’: there has been a larger increase in daily minimum temperatures (as opposed to maximum) and the largest warming has occurred during winter and early spring, resulting in a longer frost-free period and more growing degree days.” […] Read more
Waiting For The Flood
Reading Time: 5 minutes APRIL 10 So much water coming from the west toward our farm south of Weyburn in southern Saskatchewan. And it’s coming so fast. A friend phones to ask about using our floating pump. We have to say no. We drive by a neighbour, busy ditching water away from where his new basement is flooded. Abandoning […] Read more
Joint Success
Reading Time: 7 minutes It’s a question that Myron Teneycke asked five years ago, and the joint-venture owners of STR Farms at Young, Sask. haven’t looked back since. Nor has the farm. It has grown — going from 8,000 to 11,200 acres — and its staff has grown too. Today, STR pays a full-time managing couple, plus three full-time […] Read more
Organic Divide
Reading Time: 13 minutes Three years ago, organic grain farmers could have been forgiven for thinking they’d found nirvana. They were the darlings of an ever-growing environmental movement. They were swooned over by consumers eager for safe and healthy food. And they were getting paid up to three times more than conventional. With wheat at $25 and $30 per […] Read more
Clubbing It
Reading Time: 7 minutes The picture is usually all wrong. When someone mentions farm management clubs, your mind sees a group of like-minded and very serious farmers — neighbours almost certainly — regularly meeting around a table to share their financials and to discuss ideas and experiences that could help each member. Well, the real world is a bit […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
