Reading Time: 2 minutes It wasn t cheap. It wasn t easy. But they believed they could do it and with help they did. Now the Gilmers share their story of hammering out a succession plan and the good it is doing them, their family and their farm Only one-third of family-owned businesses survive the transition to the next […] Read more
CrYStAL CLeAr
Actually, his million-dollar cow may be the least impressive thing about Morris Thalen and his Alberta farm. Can his ideas work for you too?
Reading Time: 2 minutes In 1980, Morris Thalen started with a share of a 200-sow farrow-to-finish farm in British Columbia near Chilliwack. One year later he got into cattle buying and selling, and seven years later, Thalen made the leap to dairy farming, milking 17 grade cows in a small barn with four stalls. Fast forward to 2010, and […] Read more
Machinery Syndicates
Reading Time: 3 minutes Every field on our snow-swept farm has a story, and every good story has many characters. One neighbour no tills our wheat in exchange for spraying. Another exchanges hay for baling, and for yet another we chop straw in return for manure. Like most farms, our network of trustworthy neighbours (i.e. business associates ) is […] Read more
RURAL DELIVERY
Reading Time: 2 minutes In a small shared office in Guelph, Crystal Mackay grooms shy farmers into media darlings. She preens them for the camera. She trains them for the microphone. If farmers are going to save modern livestock production from its free-range and vegan foes, Mackay tells them, it s going to take more than facts. It s […] Read more
Unflappable
Reading Time: 4 minutes Sunlight pours down between two silos. Just out of the wind, a man in coveralls sits in a wheelbarrow and has a cellphone clamped to his ear. Plunked there, he listens carefully, then frowns, nods and answers with calm, honest, intelligent directness. I wait at a distance and let him finish his call before introducing […] Read more
If the test of leadership is how a group survives crisis, Stan Eby has passed. Twice
Reading Time: 2 minutes Sunlight pours down between two silos. Just out of the wind, a man in coveralls sits in a wheelbarrow and has a cellphone clamped to his ear. Plunked there, he listens carefully, then frowns, nods and answers with calm, honest, intelligent directness. I wait at a distance and let him finish his call before introducing […] Read more
The day that Bruce and Sharon Vandenberg opted to outsource all their marketing is the day their farm really took off. Could the strategy work for you too? Outsourcing
Reading Time: 11 minutes It was the trickle of cars driving up their lane that first opened their eyes. If people wanted goat’s milk that badly, said Bruce and Sharon Vandenberg, maybe it wouldn’t be so totally loony to put a couple dozen does in their barn, just as a sideline while Sharon was home with their growing family. […] Read more
The Difference It Makes
Reading Time: 7 minutes It wasn’t cheap. That’s what hits you first. When Heather Broughton signed up for the CTEAM program from the George Morris Centre five years ago it cost them $5,500, a big investment for an averaged-sized farm. After completing the course Heather and husband Greg thought it was so valuable they both signed up for the […] Read more
Me, An E-Student
Reading Time: 3 minutes I found it. It’s the ultimate school. I won’t get marked. I won’t write exams. I won’t even have to hand in assignments. Not only that, but it’s okay if I finish early, and if I skip parts that don’t seem important, and I can do it all at home, at my own pace, within […] Read more
Bank On It
Reading Time: 12 minutes If it’s true that every farmer knows how easy it is for bankers to forget that there is a real person behind the account numbers, maybe the opposite is true too. Yes, there’s a new farmer. Today, the average farmer’s financial skills are miles beyond those of farmers 30 years ago. Our farms are more […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
