Reading Time: 6 minutes The Canadian ethanol industry was full of heady promise when it splashed out of the labs in the ’90s, touted as the saviour of the environment, a breakthrough in green energy, and an enormous new market for grain farmers. After decades of low crop prices, farmers were desperate for a shot of good news, and […] Read more
Is The Party Already Over?
Country Guide’sNew Year’s Book List
Reading Time: 5 minutes Here s a tough one. If you were going to design an ideal farm with an ideal farm manager, and you were going to spell out all the things they’d need to do in a year, how much time would you set apart for them to read? I know, I know& it isn t an […] Read more
Country Guide’s New Year’s Book List
Reading Time: 5 minutes Here’s a tough one. If you were going to design an ideal farm with an ideal farm manager, and you were going to spell out all the things they’d need to do in a year, how much time would you set apart for them to read? I know, I know… it isn’t an ideal world, […] Read more
Down To Business
Reading Time: 7 minutes The last thing I expected at the Growing Your Farm Profits workshop was to cry. Farmers don’t cry, right? This seminar after all was supposed to be all about profits and business, not about emotions, but when I risked a sideways look at my six-foot-tall business partner, he too was blinking back the waterworks. Full-time, […] Read more
The Boom In Succession
Reading Time: 10 minutes Meet The Family It’s one thing to know you need to do a better job communicating. But how do you actually get started? When I ask her to tell me a skill that families need to manage succession, Tamara Fraser’s answer is researched and personal: “Communication is the most important thing.” Fraser studied farm succession […] Read more
GET MORE OUT OF CCA
Reading Time: 5 minutes Depreciation sounds like it must be bad. After all, how can it be good when the things you own are going down in value? Farmers know, however, that depreciation is a powerful tool for understanding their operation’s financial health, as well as for evaluating future production plans and for distributing the cost of a capital […] Read more
Life Insurance Survival Guide
Reading Time: 8 minutes Life insurance isn’t complicated, but it is complex,” Paul Craft, a financial planner from Steinbach, Man. tells me. It seems he’s right. You don’t have to like talking about insurance in order to understand how it works and to see where there might be a fit for your farm. Designing the package, however, can take […] Read more
Insure It Right
Reading Time: 6 minutes After hunting down the best interest rates, negotiating terms of a intimidating mortgage, providing every financial detail you could scrape out of your filing cabinet and signing a stack of papers, your banker asks if you want creditor insurance. You haven’t done any price shopping ahead of time and the second last thing you want […] Read more
Lost And Found In A Haystack
Reading Time: 4 minutes The breeze blows up from Georgian Bay and over Ontario’s Blue Mountains, then swirls down a dusty side road and settles on a small farm with the name “Needles” on the mailbox. In a clapboard farmhouse among the pear trees, pig pens and sheep pastures lives acclaimed author and playwright, Dan Needles. Inspiration surrounds him, […] Read more
Lost And Found In A Haystack – for Oct. 11, 2010
Reading Time: 4 minutes The breeze blows up from Georgian Bay and over Ontario s Blue Mountains, then swirls down a dusty side road and settles on a small farm with the name Needles on the mailbox. In a clapboard farmhouse among the pear trees, pig pens and sheep pastures lives acclaimed author and playwright, Dan Needles. Inspiration surrounds […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
