Reading Time: 5 minutes So many integral parts of running a farm business can cause stress. Finances, family disagreements, weather, long hours, lack of sleep, volatile markets, industry regulations and paperwork, uncertain crop yield, machinery breakdowns, technology, and the well-being of livestock are the most common. High stress levels are common on farms, but that’s dangerous because they can […] Read more
Mental health affects decision-making on the farm
Farming is one of the most stressful careers, and that can affect your ability to make decisions
Formalize the family farm with shareholder agreements
Reading Time: 3 minutes What if everyone in the farm business could lay out their expectations and at the same time determine what is expected of each to make the business work? And what if you could also design a road map for how each person exits the operation or buys out other parties? A shareholder’s agreement is an […] Read more
The pros and cons of new technologies
New tech and equipment can be fun and often helpful, but experts caution against “new and shiny” syndrome
Reading Time: 3 minutes New farm technology hitting the marketplace can be awfully enticing, and it’s not been unheard of in years gone by to cause a frenzied “must-buy” reaction from those wowed by a demonstration. But just because the latest whiz-bang creation can, for the sake of argument, combine, check the markets, and cook an egg, all while […] Read more
Ontario sisters strike farm business partnership
Business partnerships can be tricky to navigate at the best of times. Throw in family members, a new on-farm business and a growing family legacy, and it’s a whole other level
Reading Time: 7 minutes For several years, sisters Kori de Boer and Casie Kuypers were informally part of their family’s original dairy farm in Palgrave, Ont., run by their dad and uncle. When their dad and uncle’s partnership wrapped up a few years ago, they knew that if they didn’t want the dairy to stay small (which would mean […] Read more
Side hustles for farmers
A lot more farmers are turning to side hustles as a way to provide additional sources of income, but there’s a lot to consider before jumping in
Reading Time: 9 minutes Imagine telling your family of proud cattle producers that you are going to farm insects. But for fourth-generation farmer Ryan Steppler, his idea for a side business raising crickets for food wasn’t that hard of a sell to his dad, Dale. In fact, it was Dale who first gave him the idea. Ag-related or not, […] Read more
13 steps to a side hustle on the farm
Reading Time: 5 minutes Stephanie Plaster, a farm management outreach specialist with the University of Wisconsin – Madison Division of Extension, talks with lots of farmers who want to diversify their farms with a value-added enterprise. She uses several tools and exercises to help them plan what they want to do and how to do it. Here is her […] Read more
2022-Level Farm Profits are Over. What’s Next?
Reading Time: 2 minutes It looks like 2022-level profitability is over for farms in Western Canada. The decline of commodity markets combined with ever-increasing costs is pressuring 2025 farm budgets. So, if grain farming is back to squeaking out a profit for the foreseeable future, what can we do about it? 1. Confront the facts, but don’t lose faith […] Read more
Dreamer versus Doer: Harnessing creativity in farm businesses
Connecting your internal dreamer with real-world doing can lead to big wins on the farm
Reading Time: 7 minutes Is the world really made of up “dreamers” and “doers”? And if so, which one comes out ahead? Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow believed that “One half of the world must sweat and groan that the other half may dream.” Dreamers, who are more inclined towards imagination, creativity and possibilities, are in stark contrast to doers […] Read more
PEI farm plans for the future
Many factors go into planning how a farm operates day to day, year to year. What about generation to generation? This P.E.I. farm honours the past to plan for the future
Reading Time: 8 minutes One important MacNeill family value weaves through generations of this P.E.I. farm family: there’s nothing wrong with a good day’s work. Cows might come and go on this sixth-generation dairy farm and decades-worth of visitors have lived the farm life if only for a brief summer vacation in the on-farm cottages. Even hurricane Fiona left […] Read more
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
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
