Reading Time: 5 minutes By nature, farmers are problem solvers. Farmers deal with production, mechanical, financial, marketing, and business challenges on a daily basis, and the success of their farm operations depends upon their ability to solve those problems quickly and efficiently. In fact, farmers are so adept at solving their problems, the temptation is to think that every […] Read more
Farmers need solutions in the face of bigger, tougher problems
'Wicked problem' is the latest buzzphrase, and agriculture is in the crosshairs
Our share keeps falling
Farmers’ portion of the consumer food dollar is plummeting. At the very least, it’s something consumers should know
Reading Time: 5 minutes The disconnect between farm commodity and retail food prices is worsening. Throughout 2013, major media warned consumers of rising food costs, with BNN on May 16 reporting, “How much Canadians pay for their food is becoming a major concern.” That same day, CBC added its voice, saying, “Canadian families are planning to cut back on […] Read more
The Canadian-made bottleneck
The West’s grain paralysis was predictable. Canada has a Third World grain infrastructure, and it’s getting worse
Reading Time: 7 minutes From the headlines, it can feel like Canada’s grain transportation woes have suddenly got worse. In fact, they’ve been looming for decades, or even longer. Nor have its inadequacies come as any surprise to people in the know. For instance, in their paper “Grain Transportation in Canada — Deregulation,” transportation experts Joseph Monteiro and Gerald […] Read more
The best strategy to market grains?
Here is an eye-opening study that all farmers should read and consider
Reading Time: 4 minutes Coffee shops abound with the stories of farmers who have topped the markets by using a specific grain marketing strategy. Market advisers boast of the high prices that producers have earned by following their advice. But rarely do we hear of marketing mistakes or of the prices received by those who have sold in the […] Read more
Co-op succession?
The lack of succession planning helps explain why so many co-ops are being sold, and why even more are in danger
Reading Time: 6 minutes The only thing farmers seem to do better than growing vast amounts of grain seems to be selling off ownership of the industry, especially in the West. In February of this year, Parrish and Heimbecker purchased the 112,000-tonne farmer-owned Weyburn Inland Terminal. Just a month earlier, Viterra bought the 42,000-tonne Lethbridge Inland Terminal that had […] Read more
A farmer’s rant
There is an anger building across the Prairies deeper than I have ever seen
Reading Time: 6 minutes After harvesting a record crop, Prairie farmers are unable to move it. Some haven’t even been able to deliver grain they had contracted for movement last fall, and to make matters worse, they can only watch as grain prices fall across the West in spite of strong offers from international buyers. Farmers are encountering basis […] Read more
The new land barons
A new land rush is underway, based on enormous pension funds that expect to lock up land ownership for decades
Reading Time: 8 minutes In the November 2013 Country Guide article “Selling Out Farming,” I wrote about the growing demand by private investors and speculators for farmland. However, the impact private investors have on land values, rural society and farming as we know it today will be minor compared to the most recent group of buyers into the farmland […] Read more
Are you marketing, or speculating?
University of Minnesota’s online Commodity Challenge can be a great place to improve your marketing skills
Reading Time: 4 minutes This year’s drop in grain prices, together with many producers’ inability in the West to deliver contracted grain, has left farmers scrambling to maximize revenues and even to generate some cash flow from last year’s production. Many seem to be jumping into new marketing strategies. But first, they should ask themselves, their grain buyers, their marketing advisers, and their commodity brokers (if they […] Read more
If the good times are gone
Can your farm survive the next 25 years at this winter's grain prices? It may have to
Reading Time: 5 minutes Since 2007, grain producers have profited from unprecedented high grain prices. Even this year’s record yields and high crop insurance payments have moderated the impact of the recent drop in grain prices. Most growers continue to feel the good times they have experienced for the past six years are going to continue. Gary Schnitkey thinks such farmers are wrong, maybe even fatally wrong. Schnitkey […] Read more
Selling out farming
Here’s a crowdsourcing website to get all of us fighting to keep farmland ownership in the hands of farmers
Reading Time: 5 minutes Owning farmland is no longer a passion restricted to farmers. Today it is just as likely that farmland offered for sale will be bought by an individual investor, a developer, an investment fund, or even a sovereign wealth fund. While this demand is a boon to land values and those farmers seeking to sell land, […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
