Reading Time: 5 minutes In anybody’s book, it’s a big number. Nissim Avraham has taken the lead in growing Ontario’s milk market by 30 million litres in three short years, and he’s done it mainly by tapping into a market that many other farmers say is too trendy, fickle and volatile for responsible business planning. It’s the ethnic market, […] Read more
Sizing Up The Ethnic Market
The Heart Of Your Farm(2)
Reading Time: 5 minutes RECOVERY Recovery is more than “getting back on your feet.” It means psychological and physical adjustments, and there will be have to changes for the family and spouse too. “A heart event affects the entire family,” says nurse Kendra Ulmer. “One of the most important things you can do to speed recovery is to accept […] Read more
Breaking Away
Reading Time: 5 minutes There are lots of reasons for farmers not to take a vacation. You might not have reliable help, or maybe you don’t want to take your eyes off the markets, even for a second. Or perhaps you just find it tough to give up control, even for a week or two. Get past it. Work-life […] Read more
Marketing For Beginners
Reading Time: 5 minutes Around the lunch table in the teachers’ lounge at her school, Dana Thatcher always attracted a lot of attention. Unlike her co-workers, her lunches were not only homemade. They were homegrown too. And not only that, Thatcher also talked about why she liked her locally grown food, and she talked about it well enough to […] Read more
Get What You’re Owed
Reading Time: 4 minutes Running a farm means running a business, but sometimes that’s hard to remember when you get caught up in busy times like harvest or calving. Sometimes it’s hard to remember, too, because farming offers so many temptations. After all, who wouldn’t rather grab a wrench and head for the shop than grab a phone and […] Read more
Elevated Marketing
Reading Time: 3 minutes The news for local elevators can look depressing. More and more large farmers have the equipment and the skills to completely bypass elevators on their way to the market. Even when they do sell through an elevator, such farmers get on the phone first. Loyalty means less and less. The same goes for average and […] Read more
Our farms are still building better cities. Want proof? Here’s Gwen Paddock
Reading Time: < 1 minute Although she s been involved in more boards and organizations and in a wider range of causes than anyone could remember, Gwen Paddock is certain she knows who gets the credit. She s absolutely certain. It s her farm background, and it s the reason why she s cited by such a wide range of […] Read more
Schoolwork
Reading Time: 4 minutes It used to be that it was only the competition between farm jobs and city jobs that was so tough. Now, it’s also the competition within agriculture. As thousands more farmers get serious about retirement, many are choosing to hold onto the farm by hiring an employee to help with the long hours in spring […] Read more
On the sixth anniversary of the BSE border closings, Canada’s genetics exports are growing stronger and more diverse
Reading Time: 3 minutes Canada was setting a torrid export pace of more than 100,000 replacement dairy calves a year before May, 2003. Sales of embryos, semen, beef and small ruminant genetics were setting records too, adding up to $2 billion per year. Now, six years after the first Canadian case of BSE was confirmed, the country’s genetics exporters […] Read more
Looking To Export Livestock Genetics?
Reading Time: < 1 minute So you think you have genetics to offer to the world? You aren’t alone. Exporters say there are countless opportunities for producers interested in shipping their own livestock and genetics. The first step is to determine marketability of your genetics, plus the market requirements. To do that, Rick McRonald, executive director of the Canadian Livestock […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
