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Research proves it. The more digital your business becomes, the more important soft skills are to your success.
Guide Business, Management

The skills you’ll need as farms become more digital

Technology is transforming agriculture at a speed we hardly grasp. Will yours be among the farms that emerge stronger?

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Reading Time: 5 minutes In October, Country Guide covered the report “Farmer 4.0: How the Coming Skills Revolution Can Transform Agriculture” published by RBC, with its emphasis on how the era of super-automation will change how we farm. “As Canadian farmers leave traditional tasks to smart machines, and focus on strategy and systems, they’ll be better positioned than ever […] Read more
Farmers are using online platforms such as social media to do what they do best: i.e. capitalize on the latest tools and technologies to promote and sell Canadian agriculture.
Guide Business

Is it time to rethink your consumer approach?

Science is telling us it’s time for a fresh look at how we approach public engagement, especially when it’s online

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Reading Time: 6 minutes Once upon a time, the standard advice was that if farmers want to connect with consumers, they should share the fascinating science and facts that make up the world of agriculture. Wouldn’t consumers be enthralled by the behind-the-scenes mechanics and science of how their food is made? Actually, most people don’t care about the mechanics […] Read more
Grumpy farmers rejoice: Research has shown that unhappiness can actually make you more creative.
Guide Business

Managing your business through stress and rough times

Make your point | Being innovative when problem solving is an essential skill

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Reading Time: 3 minutes Feeling a little grumpy and stressed these days? Seems it’s been that kind of year so far. In an age of mental health awareness, it’s no surprise to learn that stress can easily mess with your mental and physical health. Feeling foggy, distracted or listless can ultimately lead to less-than-optimal decisions as your focus is […] Read more
In Quebec, a healthy agriculture is the cornerstone of its rural sustainability policy, and a big part of the reason it will spend an extra $15 billion on farms and related businesses by 2025.
Guide Business

Different in Quebec

History makes Quebec unique. But it takes more than history to account for its approach to ag policy and why that approach is being studied by farmers across the country and around the world

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Reading Time: 9 minutes For centuries, agriculture has been a major contributor to the economic engine of Quebec and to the vitality of its rural regions. In 2016, the GDP of Quebec’s bio-food industry was 7.4 per cent, totalled $23.4 billion, and created 12 per cent of jobs in the province. From 2013 to 2016, the GDP of the […] Read more
Are you confident with the direction you're getting from advisors as you inch closer towards a farm transition?
Guide Business, Management

On offer

Two new transition services show how the advisory sector is evolving. How do your advisors compare?

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Reading Time: 6 minutes When the words “transition process” come up, they often provoke a sigh or maybe even a shudder. Nor should anyone pretend that transitioning your farm business will be anything but a lengthy process, or that it won’t involve difficult conversations and decisions. But as always, if you’re equipped with the right tools and methods, the […] Read more
Each interaction you have can either advance or destroy your narrative, especially when it comes to social media.
Guide Business, Marketing

Use science to be a better agvocate

To capture someone’s interest you need to find a way to connect on an emotional level

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Reading Time: 3 minutes As a farmer, you use science every day. On a day like today you might even use it to calculate how much snow load your barn can withstand, or to improve the success of your agvocacy efforts. Research shows that to build successful farmer-consumer relationships, we need to connect with people emotionally by telling our […] Read more
Trying to disprove myths can actually have the opposite effect ­— the ‘backfire’ effect.”
Guide Business, Marketing

Get the story right

Why it’s so hard to debunk myths (and the secret to doing it)

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Reading Time: 3 minutes The expression “mud sticks” doesn’t just refer to the aggravation you experience during spring planting. It also means that misinformation seems to have an uncanny knack for settling in and never letting go. Take, for instance, these gems that persist despite (or perhaps because of) an online world of information at our fingertips: bovine flatulence […] Read more
Throwing more information at consumers won’t fill up their knowledge gap. We need to use science.
Guide Business, Marketing

Filling in the knowledge gaps for consumers

Understanding the science of why consumers get so much wrong about agriculture can help us put them right

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Reading Time: 3 minutes It’s not an earth-shattering revelation to those working in agriculture that there is a farm-to-plate knowledge gap. We know that most consumers are generations removed from the farm and have misconceptions or a lack of accurate information about agriculture. The Knowledge Gap theory is that information has traditionally been more accessible to those with higher […] Read more
As stress levels spiral out of control and the rational front cortex of the brain shuts down, it’s more difficult to think and act rationally.
Guide Business, Management

How to argue, intelligently

It's the Old Brain vs. the New Brain

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Reading Time: 4 minutes In an increasingly polarized world, arguing seems to be a favourite pastime. Trolls (those delightful online creatures who start quarrels and sow discord for fun) treat the internet like a no-holds-barred Wild West. Others get lost in detailed rants and forget to listen — or forget what they were arguing about in the first place. […] Read more
Are you wagging your finger? Are you defensively crossing your arms? Are you avoiding eye contact? These set off a fight-or-flight response in the other person.
Guide Business, Management

Tough talk

How to respond to questions you don’t want to answer

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Reading Time: 3 minutes In the age of social media, consumers are feeling empowered to ask more and more questions, which means that answering questions about farm practices has become another “to-do” on your already supercharged list. Farmers not only play an important role in the food conversation, they can be said to have a duty to participate in […] Read more

AgCanadaTV

AGCanadaTV: In Case You Missed It – Your National Ag News Recap for the week ending December 6, 2019.

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