Reading Time: 5 minutes Jason Kambeitz knows that when farmers get together over coffee and the conversation turns to farmland investment companies like Assiniboia Capital and AgCapita, the smiles disappear and a sober seriousness takes over. By buying up local farmland, the talk goes, the big funds are driving up land prices, and they re taking capital out of […] Read more
Rent To Grow
HANSON ACRES
Reading Time: 5 minutes Jeff gulped. He could feel sweat breaking out on his forehead, but he wasn t about to wipe it off, not with the whole family watching. This had been his idea. But now it seemed like such a big decision. Well? Jeff s dad Dale asked. Are we going ahead with this variable-rate fertilizer or […] Read more
It’s Your Turn Now
Reading Time: 4 minutes Elaine clapped her hands over her toddler s ears. Look out, her father-in-law Dale warned. It s that time of the month. Then he explained. Donna s got the month-end bank statements. Looking up from her computer, Donna said, Oh no! Is it 9:30 already? I ve been so busy trying to reconcile this damn […] Read more
More Than Price
Reading Time: 4 minutes ale and his son Jeff were on their way to town to fix the dishwasher in Dale s father s condo when Dale casually asked the question that brought things to a head. So, do you want to haul that canola into the terminal later this week or do you want me to look after […] Read more
“It’s Not For Me”
Reading Time: 4 minutes Not even Dale Hanson’s father could remember a spring as wet as 2011, and Ed was the second-oldest regular for coffee at Wongs Café every Thursday. “The northeast quarter’s still under at least a foot of water,” Ed said. “This was the wrong year to buy that new combine.” Ed kept talking while Dale’s wife […] Read more
Help Wanted
Reading Time: 3 minutes Nobody at Hanson Acres saw a labour problem coming until the weekend of Donna’s birthday, back in March, when Trina came home from university to celebrate with her mom and tell the family about the great summer job she had landed. Dale wasn’t nearly as thrilled as his daughter must have hoped. Instead of asking […] Read more
Tough Call
Reading Time: 6 minutes If they think of it at all, many Canadian farmers think of custom combining as something for Americans. North of the border, the conventional wisdom is, you can’t rely on custom. Time’s too short during harvest. You need to own your own machine so you can use it whenever you need it. But there are years […] Read more
Better Negotiating
Reading Time: 6 minutes Some farmers seem to think negotiating is a full-contact sport. But it’s more than a game — it’s serious business. Nothing feels better than talking your way into a great deal, like getting your dealer to lop a few thousand off the price of a new combine. Heck, some of us even get a charge […] Read more
Good Neighbours
Reading Time: 5 minutes I’ve never actually seen a barn-raising. And if the other women in my neighbourhood are holding quilting bees, they’re certainly not inviting me. The olden days are long gone. Yet farmers are still getting together to share information, news, ideas, and even work. These relationships are generally casual, undocumented, flexible and, well, just downright neighbourly. […] Read more
She Said, What!?!
Reading Time: 7 minutes Even the most business-minded farmers see their work as also a way of life, not just a job. But this somehow gets put on the backburner when it’s time to make some of the farm’s most important decisions. When it comes to succession planning, for instance, the temptation is to simply hope the logistics of […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
