Morgan Smallman, J and J Farms.

Ten years on the farm

Canadian producers share the biggest lessons after a decade of farming

Reading Time: 8 minutes Ten years. It breaks down into 3,652 days, or over 87,000 hours. In that way, 10 years can seem like a lot of time. Yet in others, such as when managing a busy farm, it can pass in the blink of an eye. And that decade is certainly filled with vast knowledge acquisition, unexpected surprises […] Read more

Marketing to consumers is a whole new world but so is the opportunity, Who knew farmers would sell whisky in Abu Dhabi?

Milling grains into value-added food ideas

With consolidation and falling commodity prices as the new norm, more grain growers are making creative decisions

Reading Time: 3 minutes The number of Canadian grain farms is shrinking. Commodity prices are under pressure. Remaining growers are farming larger parcels of land. Increasingly, the answer to consolidation and falling commodity prices is vertical integration. It isn’t for every farm, but value-added products are starting to play an important role in how grain growers remain competitive. “We […] Read more


Often the benefits of having an advisor are clear. But what if you have one and it’s just not working out?

Summer Series: 6 signs it’s time to change farm advisors

[Make it Count] Are you getting what you need from your farm advisor? When is it time to break up?

Reading Time: 6 minutes The right farm advisor can help a business improve efficiencies, optimize performance and grow revenue. They also provide support to overcome challenges, but despite these benefits, the number of farmers using advisors has declined from 32 per cent in 2015 to 23 per cent in 2020, according to Farm Management Canada’s Dollars and Sense Study. […] Read more

Farmland is expensive, and getting more expensive with each passing year.

Summer Series: The lease-back business of farmland

[Land] The future according to Bonnefield CEO Tom Eisenhauer

Reading Time: 6 minutes “Every other business in this country has access to outside investors and outside capital; why shouldn’t farmers have that too?” asks the CEO of Canada’s largest provider of land-lease financing for farmers. “Farmers should have all the same financial tools that a tech company or a mining company does,” Tom Eisenhauer tells us. “That’s what […] Read more


“Continue to see increases in farmland.” – Kim Passmore and Brandon Wilcox, registered appraisers. S.W. Irvine & Associates, Guelph, Ont.

Summer Series: Where will land prices be in 10 years?

[Land] Insider predictions on what to expect from land prices in the next decade

Reading Time: 5 minutes There is just one word to describe the value of farmland in Canada: high. Or maybe that should be HIGH. Cultivated farmland across Canada jumped an average 12.8 percent last year, says Farm Credit Canada. It’s the biggest jump since 2014 and part of an upward trend that has seen land values post continuous gains […] Read more

"You have to be pretty progressive," says Jolene MacEachern, "but I think it’s possible."

Summer Series: 7 trends in agriculture for 2024

[Change Management] The long term is clear. The world will need Canadian farmers to feed a global population expected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050. But what about the short term, like next summer?

Reading Time: 6 minutes High interest rates, skyrocketing input costs, labour shortages, climate change … the exact mix varies from country to country but farmers around the world are facing threats to their ability to grow more food, which means farmers everywhere are looking for opportunities to improve production, preserve profits and protect the environment. What does it all […] Read more


From her global travels, Amy Cronin returns with a key belief: “We need to develop a risk mindset — and we need to help each other do that using peer groups.”

Summer Series: Only farmers know real risk

[Leadership] In a world that crashes from crisis to crisis, Ontario farmer Amy Cronin went on a global search for farmers who excel at risk management. Here’s what she learned

Reading Time: 5 minutes In a world that crashes from crisis to crisis, Ontario farmer and Nuffield scholar, Amy Cronin, went on a global search for farmers who excel at risk management. Here’s what she learned. – April Stewart, CG Associate Editor If it’s a new and even more volatile world for farmers (which it is) and if success […] Read more

On farms big and small, summer employee-recognition days are catching on across the country.

Time to celebrate

Summer is the perfect opportunity to host an employee appreciation party

Reading Time: 4 minutes On a sunny June afternoon, productivity comes to a standstill at Big Marble Farms as more than 300 employees leave the offices, greenhouse and packhouse and spend several hours playing games, navigating obstacle courses, throwing axes and jumping in blowup castles, all as part of the annual Employee Appreciation Day at the farm. “A reduction […] Read more


VanDeVelde says she isn’t too worried about the numbers. “Agriculture has some of the best and brightest” she says.

Does Canada have enough young farmers?

It probably depends on what you mean by “enough”

Reading Time: 5 minutes Jennifer VanDeVelde never planned to farm. She graduated university with a biology degree, attended teachers college and went straight into the classroom. Five years later, in 2006, VanDeVelde left that classroom and joined her husband, David, a fourth-generation tobacco farmer, on the family farm in Delhi, Ont. The VanDeVeldes, both 40, transitioned out of tobacco […] Read more

Inflation takes a bite

Inflation takes a bite

Should we worry if the prices Canadians pay at the checkout influence what they think of farmers?

Reading Time: 3 minutes When a television reporter recently tweeted a photo of a package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the meat department at Loblaws with a price tag of $37, the backlash was swift. The responses ranged from “eat less meat” to a less polite “let it rot on the shelf,” and they all had one thing […] Read more