Reading Time: 2 minutes We brought in lots of help from across the country to help us pick our list of Canada’s 12 most influential farmers, and while we never did make an official count, it’s safe say there were well over 100 names that came up in the discussions. Then, every time we tried to narrow the selection […] Read more
Why We Made These Picks
Are We Getting It Right?
Reading Time: 2 minutes Here at Country Guide, we’re heading into our third year with our focus on the business of farming. We started down this path by listing three or four things that we thoroughly and completely believe about today’s agriculture, and we asked ourselves if we really do believe them, how should we make this magazine different? […] Read more
Headlines You’ll Read In 2011
Reading Time: 2 minutes When 2011 comes knocking, most of us may not get up to let it in. Expectations are low, to say the least. But even if nothing revolutionary looks likely, our newspapers will keep publishing. Will we read these (admittedly light-hearted) stories in the months ahead? February 7 –National Post Spec Funds Seek Farmers As the […] Read more
Going Behind Closed Doors
Reading Time: 2 minutes Farmers have helped each other, they have taught each other and they have learned from each other for generations. Agriculture would never have been as fast or as efficient at adopting new technologies and new production methods if farmers weren’t helping each other at every step of the way. That’s been good for the public, […] Read more
10 Questions – for Aug. 30, 2010
Reading Time: 5 minutes When Stan MacEwen drives from the farm to his job as farm business consultant at the downtown Sasktoon accounting firm of Hergott Duval Stack LLP, the distance in terms of miles may stay the same, but the distance in mind-set is getting less and less. More farmers are spending more time on business management, using […] Read more
Leading question Are You Sure — Really Sure — That Your Family Is Picking The Right Person To Head Up The Farm? – for Aug. 30, 2010
Reading Time: 8 minutes Family businesses often fail because the family never actually tackles the question: Who s the right person to run this business? Instead the question is, Who s next in line? The second question sounds easier, but on scores of farms across the country, easy is the last word you d use to describe the fallout. […] Read more
How Far Does This Road Go? – for Aug. 30, 2010
Reading Time: 2 minutes Memory isn’t what it used to be. By any accounting, the last five years on the farm have gone beyond the transitional. We haven’t merely been on our way to a new agriculture. We have arrived. The place is different than it used to be, and so are the people. This is no disrespect to […] Read more
Leading QuestionAre you sure — really sure — that your family is picking the right person to head up the farm? – for Aug. 30, 2010
Reading Time: 8 minutes Family businesses often fail because the family never actually tackles the question: “Who’s the right person to run this business?” Instead the question is, “Who’s next in line?” The second question sounds easier, but on scores of farms across the country, “easy” is the last word you’d use to describe the fallout. The gap between […] Read more
Worth Saying Twice
Reading Time: 2 minutes As he tells us in this issue, when Manitoba’s Allan Calder wanted to start growing corn, he and his brother Murray drove 500 miles south to Iowa. Then whenever they passed great-looking crops, they stopped and drove up the laneways to ask the farmers how they pulled it off. It’s a story we hear time […] Read more
Farming The Toyota Way
Reading Time: 2 minutes There isn’t a farmer in Canada who hasn’t had a daydream in the last few months that started with, “Now, if I was in charge of Toyota…” The real irony, though, is that for the past decade, Toyota has been one of the few great global companies that has been managed exactly the way that […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
