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Guide Business

Young and farming

The ag census says young people are flocking back to the farm. Are they really?

By
Reading Time: 8 minutes There’s been a lot of chatter about the new farmers coming back to the sector. Across the country, enrolment numbers have ballooned at ag colleges. Even the 2016 Census of Agriculture showed a real, albeit small, increase. Saskatchewan is no exception. In 2016, the number of farm operators under the age of 35 hit 9.7 […] Read more
Guide Business, Management, Marketing

Step two

After you survive the startup, it takes a whole different set of skills to keep a value-add business growing

By
Reading Time: 8 minutes When Country Guide first spoke to sisters Natasha and Elysia Vandenhurk six years ago, their lives were hectic. But in that way, it was a story familiar to anyone running a startup. The Vandenhurk sisters were in the midst of creating a direction for Three Farmers, a food company producing camelina oil products from crops […] Read more
Guide Business, Management

You’re the ‘leader’?

Even if you farm on your own, these CEO strategies will make your operation more successful, and more sustainable too

By
Reading Time: 8 minutes No one would really question whether any farmer serving on a commodity or other type of farm board might need some leadership skills. After all, that’s what those farmers are doing, right? They’re being farm leaders. The same goes too for any farmer who manages a large operation with multiple employees. Obviously, if they’ve got […] Read more
Crops

Six tips for better flax agronomy

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For years, flax has been the ugly stepsister to Cinderella crops such as canola. But with the right agronomy and new varieties, flax might be the belle of the ball. The long-term Canadian average yield for flax is roughly 21 bushels per acre, said Rachel Evans, agronomist for the Flax Council of Canada. Improving flax[...]
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Guide Business

Raising your farm’s importance

Making your farm more valuable to your suppliers can move you a big step up the success ladder

By
Reading Time: 5 minutes In some ways, of course, farming is unique. In other ways, though, it’s got the same concerns as every other business, because like other business owners, farmers must deal with various other businesses all through the year. What can farmers do to improve those business relationships, or at the very least to prevent hiccups in[...]
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Crops, Guide Business

Risk warning

Inside the campaign to get better risk management programs for Canada’s farmers

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Reading Time: 8 minutes Ask Keith Currie where the biggest risk lies, and he’ll point to the sky. “We’re seeing much more severe weather systems, whether it’s cold snaps, dry snaps, wet snaps. The weather patterns are moving differently,” says Currie, who grows hay and sweet corn near Collingwood, Ont., where he is president of the Ontario Federation of[...]
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After growing up on a ranch in the BSE era, Echlin looked for a path that would give her much more control. That meant studying political science before starting to farm.
Fruit/Vegetables, Guide Business

A different school

For Vance Lester and Sue Echlin, getting a non-agricultural education proved a big help when they returned to the farm

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Reading Time: 6 minutes Graduate degrees in ecology and international relations don’t seem the kind of education that would be likely to help on a Canadian farm. But that’s where we might be wrong. For Sue Echlin and Vance Lester, that kind of schooling has been instrumental in their launching a fruit-growing and winery business, and in keeping it[...]
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Guide Business

Flood warning

Will Canada’s land market drown in a torrent of new listings as more farmers get to retirement age? The truth is… nobody knows

By
Reading Time: 9 minutes We’ve all heard the predictions. They say that with so many of our farmers reaching their 60s and 70s all at the same time, we’re soon going to see the biggest rush of land onto the market that this country has ever witnessed. Will it happen? Will the land market get flooded sometime in the[...]
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Cereals, Guide Business, Marketing

After the CWB

Whether you farm in the West or East, looking at how Prairie farmers are managing their sales after five years on their own will make you a better marketer

By
Reading Time: 9 minutes Maybe you mourned its demise, or maybe you danced on its grave. Either way, five years after the federal government put the Canadian Wheat Board’s single desk six feet under, it’s clear there will be no resurrection. How have farmers adapted to marketing wheat without the single desk? Where are they excelling, and where not?[...]
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AgCanadaTV

AGCanadaTV: In Case You Missed It – Your National Ag News Recap for the week ending February 14, 2020.

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