Reading Time: 10 minutes [UPDATED: Jan. 11, 2021] Josh Oulton and his partner Patricia Bishop have grown flax on their Nova Scotia farm for nearly a decade, but not with an eye to the market that most Canadian flax growers are after. Instead, Oulton and Bishop grow varieties of flax that produce the plant-based fibre used to make linen, […] Read more
From flax in the field to shirt sleeves
Meet a Nuffield Canada farmer scholar with a vision for a value chain for Canadian-grown linen
Farm opportunities on your mind
Canada’s farmers tell us the new directions they’re planning for their farms
Reading Time: 12 minutes Not so long ago, all the buzz was about unleashing Canada’s full agricultural potential on a world that desperately needs our farmers to produce more and more. Global population was booming, more countries were more prosperous, and consumers everywhere were changing and improving their diets. Now our country needs Canada’s farmers to succeed too. Whether […] Read more
The farm reason to travel
Actually, the COVID-19 pandemic is a great chance to re-think how ‘off the beaten track’ travel and extended time overseas can be great business catalysts. Three farmers and a business professor tell us how it works for them
Reading Time: 8 minutes Of course there’s a cost. Travel is an education, but how and where you travel means you do have to make the time, you do have to have the means, and you must seize an opportunity to do it. What do you get for that investment? The answer is both simple and complicated. Travel will […] Read more
What lies ahead in a post-COVID world?
Young farmers around the world weigh how the pandemic has had an impact on them, and how it’ll change how they pursue success
Reading Time: 5 minutes The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged farmers worldwide. Now, only time will tell which of its impacts will be with us the longest, and which will have the greatest impact. Already, though, knowledgeable and influential young farmers across the globe have a sense of what may be next, and certainly what’s necessary for the road ahead. […] Read more
From bad to worse, to better again
How one farm couple and their financial advisor restructured significant debt to dig them out of dire financial circumstances
Reading Time: 6 minutes Art Lange, left, walks the field edge and says that in an ideal world, every farm would make money every year and every farm manager would always make the best financial decisions. But it’s not a perfect world. Well-kept financial records help. So do staying on top of production costs and following a budget, but […] Read more
Pandemic planning: Groundwork
What will Canada's food system look like as we roll toward 2021? And how will you be able to build on those changes to make the family farm more resilient, more sustainable, and a better business?
Reading Time: 8 minutes Resilience has two halves. The part that automatically comes to mind is the way a truly resilient business can take a punch without shutting down. It can survive a bout of bad weather, bad markets, a black swan. But there’s something else too. It isn’t just that a resilient farm keeps breathing. It’s that a […] Read more
Tax credits for donated food
The pandemic has stretched our ability to supply food banks and provide food aid. New approaches must be found
Reading Time: 4 minutes Even at the best of times, some Canadians can’t afford to buy enough healthy, nutritious food. This year’s pandemic raised the risk that more households would fall into that group. Within just a few weeks of the lockdown, demand at food banks began to rise when millions of Canadians were furloughed or lost their jobs […] Read more
‘I’m a Canadian farmer’
In a summer of so much change, with regional differences as big as ever and the differences between farm sectors seeming to multiply, who really knows what “I’m a farmer” means?
Reading Time: 12 minutes There’s absolutely no such thing as a “typical” Canadian farm, let alone a typical farmer. Big statistics describe Canada’s farmers as a whole, though they tell only a small part of the story. For starters, there aren’t many of you around anymore, and fewer with every passing decade: 271,935 at last count. But you take […] Read more
The awful, essential detail of farm accidents
Most media have stopped reporting the details when a farm fatality happens — which makes future fatalities all the more likely
Reading Time: 4 minutes Media reports that call a farm death a freak accident and offer scant insight into what actually happened are increasingly becoming the norm. It worries farm safety specialists. What sort of message does this send to farmers? Use of the term “freak accident” is always cringe-worthy, for starters. A freak accident, by definition, is one […] Read more
Yukon gold
Could you farm North of 60? A growing number of Canadian farmers want to give it a try
Reading Time: 11 minutes If you work dawn to dusk on the farm in Yukon Territory, that can make for 20-plus hours at this time of year as summer advances and it never really gets dark. Of course, agriculture isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when most of us think of this land of the midnight sun. […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
