Marketing experts say your farm already has a brand, and regardless of whether you give it a moment’s thought, and regardless of whether you try to manage it, that brand is your farm’s identity. It’s how you are perceived. Indeed, the people who devote their careers to thinking about these things have an even simpler way of making their point: Your farm is your brand. For most farms, your brand is conveyed by your last name — a reputation shaped and seasoned by multiple generations. The question is, can you manage your brand to give a boost to your farm business? In the case of Alberta brothers Jim and Bill Hole, their greenhouse business has been built on a brand of trust garnered by their much-loved mother. Today, the brothers’ challenge is to leverage that brand in order to build sales among time-stretched, next-gen customers. Here’s how they plan to do just that.
Reading Time: 6 minutes Winter is disappearing in a swirl of warmth and sunshine in St. Albert, on the northwest edge of Edmonton. Airseeders are poised about the countryside, and calves are nuzzling their mothers. This is the kind of day when Canadians rediscover that their heritage rises from the soil, thanks to the sweat of farm families. Across […] Read more
Family brand
In turbulent times, your family brand can be the foundation for business success… like when Jim Hole and brother Bill decided to take the farm in directions no one had anticipated
Blood, sweat & deals
After a landmark 2013, Gerry Ritz sets his goals for the future shape of Canadian Agriculture
Reading Time: 5 minutes Gerry Ritz knows how to make news, whether it’s at an Ottawa media scrum, or if it’s 42 C and he is standing over a barbecue — in a leather apron — cooking beef in China. After years of closed borders to Canadian beef, China had just opened to young animals. That particular Canada Day […] Read more
Beyond a bank balance
What’s the right level of working capital for your farm? It probably isn’t what you think
Reading Time: 4 minutes Working capital can be a harsh indicator of liquidity. On a practical level, it tells you how much you’ll have on hand to buy operating inputs for next season. It’s your ability to get next year’s crop in the ground or to feed animals in the lot — before you need to tap into an […] Read more
Fearless financing
A passion for leveraged growth has helped drive the phenomenal rise of Greg Appleyard
Reading Time: 7 minutes If anyone in Canadian agriculture knows how to push the traditional financing envelope to stimulate growth, it’s got to be Greg Appleyard from Strathmore, Alta. “There were points when I leveraged the buttons on my shirt,” Appleyard says. In the nine years from 2003 to 2012, Appleyard went from farming 5,000 acres and 500 cows […] Read more
Times two puts knowledge to work
For this husband-and-wife team, advanced farm management training makes a measurable difference
Reading Time: 5 minutes The two desks of Kristin Ego-MacPhail and Gary MacPhail sit beside each other, tidy and yet stacked with business as their hectic farm market season winds down. This small office is the interface between production and business at Ego’s Nurseries, Garden Centre and Farm Market near Orillia, an hour or so north of Toronto, where […] Read more
Five steps to your retirement plan
Follow this path to a retirement plan that has the security and lifestyle options you will be happy to have
Reading Time: 6 minutes 1. What do you have? For 2013, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada pegged the average net worth of farmers at nearly $1.9 million. That might seem like enough for a satisfying retirement, but most farmers don’t want to liquidate everything as soon as they turn 65 years old. It’s important to have a list of all […] Read more
Mid-size turnaround
Reading Time: 8 minutes In 2010, Canada’s mid-size farms seemed bound for extinction. Now, they’ve got a shot Only a few years ago, economists, accountants and rural development specialists were all forecasting that agriculture would evolve into the proverbial doughnut. The middle would be missing. In the near future, this legion of experts said, farms that survived would either […] Read more
Summer business checklist
Reading Time: 8 minutes You use the winter to get ready for spring. Now, use the summer to get ready for the winter business season. With a sigh of relief mixed with equal parts of pride and exhaustion, you climb down from the tractor seat. The fertilizer is spread, the crop is growing and the weeds are under control. […] Read more
Van Camp: More technology=more food=less hunger
Reading Time: 2 minutes Although the challenge of world hunger is complex, Jeff Simmons believes food security issues can be solved by global adaptation of technology and open trade “We can feed 10 billion people, it’s access and policy that hinders that ability,” the president of Elanco Animal Health said in a recent phone interview with Country Guide. Since […] Read more
The high cost of success
Reading Time: 6 minutes If you’re farming in Canada, the odds are that you’re in the business of producing commodities. So, whether you like it or not, your competition is global, and in such a commodity marketplace, the lowest-cost producer wins. Not long ago, it was considered vital to know your costs and to keep striving for lower cost […] Read more