two farm couples standing on their farms

Quebec farmers still learning after 10 years

After a decade farming, these Quebec farmers know that there’s always more to learn

Reading Time: 11 minutes Have you ever met a young farmer who was fresh out of ideas? Neither have we. The utter thrill of getting into farming for the first time is incomparable. The freedom to make one’s own decisions and, rightly or wrongly, see those decisions through. With time, of course, farmers gain perspective. Perhaps those older voices […] Read more

Lydia Carpenter, Wian Prinsloo with son Alastair

An evolving vision

First-gen farmers share their blueprint for business transition

Reading Time: 5 minutes When it comes to starting and growing a business, you’re only limited by your imagination. For Belmont, Manitoba first-generation farmers Lydia Carpenter and her husband Wian Prinsloo, it’s that type of unlimited, outside-the-box thinking that has become their regular way of thinking. Over the years, they’ve leveraged multiple income streams, a direct-to-consumer marketing beef business, […] Read more


Silhouette two road bike cyclist man cycling in the morning, and Cowboys riding across grassland with mountains behind, early morning, British Columbia, Canada.

The math checks out

A theory once applied to cycling can help your farm make big gains

Reading Time: 10 minutes What happens if you squeeze a few extra drops out of an orange while making juice? One small extra sip, of course. But what if you squeezed out a few extra drops from 1,000 oranges? You’d get a lot more orange juice at no extra cost. Could the same be true of food production? Why […] Read more

“If you learn how to manage money and people and time, then you can manage any business.” – Kristjan Hebert.

Summer Series: Your next decision

[Change Management] Can you take the same path as Kristjan Hebert? Should you even try?

Reading Time: 9 minutes Agriculture already has so many buzz phrases meant to show you’re smart. There’s “Do more with less,” there’s “Work on the business, not in it,” and, of course, there’s “What got you here today won’t get you to where you want to go tomorrow.” It isn’t that they’re wrong. It’s that they’re too much like […] Read more


Left to right: Ryley Schmitt, Taylor Schmitt, Barry Schmitt, Nancy Schmitt, Tyler Schmitt, Ronan Schmitt, Rayelle Schmitt.

Summer Series: If you build it on HR…

[Leadership] This Alberta hay outfit is people first, business second, and boss Barry Schmitt says that’s why they post great numbers. So could their approach work for you?

Reading Time: 7 minutes If you build it, they will come, right? Dedicated and hard-working employees will if you follow the advice Barr-Ag has to offer about the “people factor”.– April Stewart, CG Associate Editor If you want something done, ask a busy person. We all sometimes say this, and there’s a good reason why. As generalizations go, this […] Read more

“If what you need is equity for growth or a way to grow where you also own part of it, as opposed to building it on rented land, we are your very best option.” – Joelle Faulkner, AOF.

The other option to renting farmland

[The Rent Shakeup: Investors] The decade’s big news in farmland renting is why not to do it, as these investors won’t hesitate to tell you

Reading Time: 9 minutes No matter where they farm and no matter what they grow or produce, farmers lose sleep over the same questions, because no matter who they are, there aren’t any simple answers. How do you expand? How can you pick the right new technologies and invest in them? And, perhaps the most anxiety producing of them […] Read more


“You have to work together to get a lot of jobs done. You’re going to be there for 12 hours working beside somebody... There’s nothing that makes the job worse than working with a person who doesn’t want to be there.” – Taylor Schmitt.

Next gen talent scouting in agriculture

Reading Time: 3 minutes Taylor Schmitt, son of company founder Barry, is operations and business manager at Barr-Ag and is in charge of Middle East and domestic sales as well as domestic logistics. Yet it is on the HR side where Taylor has really come into his own. Over the last seven years, Taylor has interviewed 250-plus candidates and […] Read more

Farmer Coach: Reflections on year one

Farmer Coach: Reflections on year one

Reading Time: 2 minutes When Ryley Richards learned out about Farmer Coach, he signed up. So far, he says, it looks like a good choice. The 41-year-old manages his family farm an hour south of Regina along with father Rod and three full-time crew members, plus a few additional hands at busy times. Over the years, the farm has […] Read more


"My mentality was,” says Enns of the Maker’s Malt concept, “if I do this right, it’s going to work.”

Craft maltster and farmer thrives by sheer determination

How did Matt Enns turn a value-add idea into a thriving venture despite all the other priorities that take up every farmer’s time? More important, could you do it too?

Reading Time: 11 minutes “There’s a lot of different things you could do,” Matt Enns says. Every farmer knows that kind of feeling. There aren’t enough hours. There are way more ideas than time to work on them. “I wish I had eight lives to live to do all the things I want to do,” Enns says. Again, it’s […] Read more

Now there’s a new question for Pasztor: how big should #andyclean aim to grow?

Good, clean fun. The man behind #andyclean

What happens when an inside joke turns into a real business?

Reading Time: 11 minutes Business in 2023 is different. Sure, there are still the traditional paths. Some farmers still work hard to identify a market and then chart a methodical approach to launch a business into it. Others take up the mantle from their parents, as young farmers always have, finding ways as they do to add their own […] Read more