Reading Time: 7 minutes Some farm managers love to spend the winter poring over their financial statements and analyzing all ratios and indicators and how they’ve changed over time. Others would rather be outside working with cattle or at conferences learning the latest disease management techniques. If you’re not in the first category, your banker might know more about […] Read more
A guide to farm financial ratios
Long lists of available financial ratios can be overwhelming. Here are three financial ratios that matter to bankers and how understanding them can strengthen your farm’s financial future
How farms can cut expenses
As we roll into the busy season, here’s a hard look at where to cut what’s inflating your expenses and eating into your profits
Reading Time: 7 minutes Input costs. Tariffs. Commodity prices. A lot of variables are moving quickly this season, and mostly not in the right direction. Monday’s short-term cash forecast scenarios are out of date by Friday, and long-term projections are anyone’s guess. What can Canadian farmers do in the short run to protect profits (and sanity) in this uncertain […] Read more
Agriculture takes a ride to the city
Looking for a way to talk to urban consumers about how farmers produce food? Jeanine Moyer takes farming right to the heart of Toronto
Reading Time: 6 minutes For the second time this past spring, Jeanine Moyer and her father Allan Wallace were phoning their rural Ontario neighbours, tracking down just the right animals to take to Toronto. They wanted docile animals, and, equally important, trusting owners — the kind of owners who would let Moyer and Wallace take their livestock on an […] Read more
A ‘next’ solution?
[The "Next" Issue] More farmers are looking for a new strategy so they can set the next generation up with a viable farm while also supporting their non-farming children. Could this be it? Maybe, it seems, but it takes some effort to figure out whether setting up this kind of tax-free zone will benefit your farm
Reading Time: 13 minutes Rob Saik is excited. He can hardly hold back as he explains the succession plan he used when he sold his own company, Agri-Trend, a few years ago. Saik had two big goals. As an ag consultant and entrepreneur, he needed financing for his newest venture, the agricultural advisory network called AGvisorPRO, but he also […] Read more
How a second farm corporation may help you at tax time
[The "Next" Issue] If you’re farming with just one corporation, you may be missing a tax trick
Reading Time: 9 minutes Not that many decades ago, Canadian farmers were wondering if they should incorporate their farms or keep on running their businesses as sole proprietorships. Now farmers are asking, ‘how many corporations should we have?” As incorporated farmers make more sophisticated strategic plans, many are adding more than one corporation to their family portfolio. Alongside farm […] Read more
Summer Series: Are you getting the right advice for your farm?
[Make It Count] This summer, the top job for more farmers will be to get busy evaluating the people who advise them
Reading Time: 7 minutes Is it time to find a new advisor? Or would walking away from your current advisors be such a serious mistake that you’d regret it for years to come? Accountants, agronomists, grain marketers and other advisors are key parts of many farm management teams. But how good are we farmers at managing those relationships and […] Read more
Summer Series: Implementing change on farms that works
[Make it Count] Like it or not, one day your farm will have to change to succeed. But what makes a farm good at change?
Reading Time: 8 minutes Norm Dreger has seen a lot of farms and agribusinesses change. Like a lot of Country Guide readers, he’s seen it from the family farm, but he also saw it in his earlier role as head of business development at Syngenta and he sees it now in his current job as principal at Osborne Interim […] Read more
Summer Series: So many landlords
[Land] Can a long-term business be built on short-term contracts? Jeff Barlow keeps his farm business stable while renting land from 43 different owners
Reading Time: 7 minutes Jeff Barlow’s 4,200-acre farm is near the town of Binbrook, about 30 km south of Hamilton, Ontario. “Technically, within the city limits,” he says. Barlow and his father grow soybeans, corn and soft red winter wheat with help from employees, Jeff’s three teenage sons, and support from Jeff’s wife, Dianne, who works off the farm […] Read more
Summer Series: Choosing the right time to quit farming isn’t easy
[Land] Rumours flew when Bobbie and Mark Bratrud decided to leave the farm. But sometimes an exit is a carefully considered decision
Reading Time: 8 minutes The second that Mark and Bobbie Bratrud started telling people they were done farming, the news travelled faster than a Saskatchewan wind. “It was a rotating door through our house,” Bobbie Bratrud says. “Everyone was coming by to ask, ‘are you guys okay?’” Mark recalls three of the most common rumours: “Somebody’s sick, you’re getting […] Read more
Summer Series: “Not just with acres”
[Land] “We had to find another way to diversify,” says Jennifer Lindgren
Reading Time: 10 minutes The question we’ve come to ask is why Jordan and Jennifer Lindgren made the strange choice to turn being a grain farmer into such a public life. Unlike most farmers, the Lindgrens’ marketing campaign puts their farm and their family right in the public spotlight. Can it possibly pay? And what’s it like behind the […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
