Reading Time: 3 minutes In 1988, when mega-retailer Wal-Mart was already spread out across 1,200 stores, mainly in the U.S., frequently in rural and semi-rural communities, the executives at the retail giant were feeling a lot like their farming neighbours, struggling with the realization that information was going to become the lifeblood of their business but not quite sure […] Read more
INFORMATION AGE
Although there’s no shortage of facts and figures on farms in Canada, there’s one thing they don’t measure. It’s emerging as the most important of all Sizing Up 2019
Reading Time: 3 minutes Jim Pallister farms 60 times more ground than Trevor Schriemer, yet both are successful. And so is Christoph Weder, a mid-sized beef producer. It all begs the question, how big should you be? The answer, it turns out, is another question. What’s your business model? Statistics Canada can pinpoint exactly what’s going on with the […] Read more
Mr. Big
Reading Time: 4 minutes If commodity agriculture is all about scale and efficiency, Jim Pallister is the very meaning of success. After all, Pallister’s is one of Canada’s largest farms, a massive 15,000-acre operation based near Portage la Prairie, Man. In a region already known for supersized farms, Pallister’s is a giant. But it wasn’t always so. In fact, […] Read more
Don’t tell Christoph Weder there’s no future for the medium-sized farm. He and the 18 other farmers in Prairie Heritage Beef Producers think mid-sized is exactly where they want to be
Reading Time: 2 minutes Christoph Weder had to find a different way of doing business. The more he looked at the cattle industry, the less he saw any long-term hope for his mid-sized farm. Across Canada, with cow-calf operators feeding into a system that typically ends up at Lethbridge feedlots, thousands of farmers have wrestled with those same fears […] Read more
It’s hard to argue with success. New business-minded producers like Trevor Schriemer are stretching what it means to say, “I’m a farmer.”
Reading Time: 4 minutes Trevor Schriemer is used to his neighbours hitting him with a little good-natured ribbing. After all, he farms in the heart of Manitoba’s Red River Valley on what could be some of the best grain-producing land on the planet. But he isn’t growing a single acre of wheat or canola. Tiny by Prairie standards, Schriemer […] Read more
WorkFORCE
Reading Time: 3 minutes It may be true that nobody ever got into farming because they wanted to become an expert in human resources. Even so, the on-the-ground realities of a scarce labour force are going to prod Canada’s farmers into paying much, much more attention to the issue. At least, the farms that emerge as success stories will […] Read more
Middle Ground
Reading Time: 3 minutes Kirschenmann says& If big farms can make it on volume and efficiency and small farms by supplying key local markets, does the future of agriculture look like a big donut, with nothing in the middle? If you had asked economist Fred Kirschenmann that question five years ago, he might have answered yes. Now, he says, […] Read more
SMALL WONDERS
Reading Time: 3 minutes Trevor Schriemer is used to his neighbours hitting him with a little good-natured ribbing. After all, he farms in the heart of Manitoba s Red River Valley on what could be some of the best grain-producing land on the planet. But he isn t growing a single acre of wheat or canola. Tiny by Prairie […] Read more
THE VIEW from…Ukraine
Reading Time: 4 minutes As the Soviet Union crumbled in the early 1990s, a new fear gnawed at grain growers around the world. For years they’d listened to tales of Ukraine, one of the planet’s great breadbaskets with its fertile steppes and enormous grain-growing potential. Would the free farmers of Ukraine rev up such a huge grain machine that […] Read more
Company Men
Reading Time: 3 minutes Guideposts The prevailing wisdom seems to be that this operation will be like so many others, a brief flash in the pan followed by a quick collapse, and then maybe a chance to pick up a tractor or combine on the cheap at the auction sale. At coffee shops, elevators and kitchen tables, and on […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
