Reading Time: 8 minutes Back in the 60s and 70s, loads of North American kids crammed their backpacks to the point of bursting and jumped straight from high school and college into a plane seat for a year of backpacking in Europe or almost anywhere else before settling down. That was then. Today, though, a lot of those planes […] Read more
Travelling for the sake of your farm
For soon-to-be farmers, a gap year of ag-focused travel — and the insights they get from it — can make for a great start
Finding the right peer group for you
The right peer group can be a great way to gain insight into your business numbers and your management options. But where do you find that ‘right’ group?
Reading Time: 8 minutes Peer groups are quickly taking on a new life in Canadian agriculture. But these are different groups today, about as different from the coffee gang at your nearby Tim’s as the NHL is from the local old-timers’ league. There are still multiple types of these groups, focusing on financial or business management, perhaps, or succession, […] Read more
Building a farm succession plan for the whole family
Today there’s more opportunity than ever to write or tweak a succession plan to drive the success of your entire family. But there’s still a lot of opportunity for it to go off the rails too
Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s been like a strain of Covid that attacks the farm business. It even started about the same time as the bug, ramping up in late 2020 when farmland values really began heating up. In fact, when you looked at the FCC graphs showing the spikes in land prices across Canada over the following months, […] Read more
How the farm succession landscape is changing
Eighty per cent of Annessa Good-Hassard’s clients come to her today wanting to gift or leave their farmland to non-farming children. And that may not be the biggest change in the new succession planning
Reading Time: 6 minutes It’s no secret. Succession planning involves bringing in the experts. But that’s nothing new. Farm families have been calling in lawyers, accountants and business advisors to help with their transition planning for decades. But don’t try saying there’s nothing new about those advisors today. Or about what they’re bringing to more and more farms. It […] Read more
Farm succession fundamentals
Despite all the social media and all the press stories, when it comes to succession, you’re still in the driver’s seat
Reading Time: 5 minutes Sure, some of the dollars are bigger. Sometimes much, much bigger. And some of the emotions around the succession table are bigger too, possibly bigger than the farm may ever have seen. Even so, when business advisor Rob Foster sits down with new clients to start discussions about farm succession, he still begins the same […] Read more
How selling local works for these farmers
For smaller farms, local can seem the only option. Now, a decade of real world experience from farmers like Troy Stozek and Michelle Schram points to a better way to do it
Reading Time: 6 minutes When it comes to getting locally grown food to consumers, farmers can only do so much. For regional food systems to thrive there needs to be more collaboration among farmers and from many other people along the chain. Troy Strozek and Michelle Schram, owners and operaters of Fresh Roots Farm at Cartwright, just north of […] Read more
Do’s and don’ts of farm direct marketing
Reading Time: 7 minutes The reality for many small farmers is that direct marketing what they raise and grow on their farms is the only way they can see to achieve the margins they need to support themselves and their dreams. “For entry farmers or those who are smaller, they don’t have the economy of scale to rely on […] Read more
Editor’s Note: Time for your vote
Reading Time: 2 minutes Canada’s mainline farm organizations are struggling for your support. They deserve another shot. That’s not based on past performance. We all have questions about one policy or another or about one political connection or another. Instead, it’s because of the scale of the challenges ahead, and because the past decade has done so much to […] Read more
The numbers you need to know when selling an agribusiness
Learn from an industry leader how to build and generate the total value of your farm. (Hint: it’s never only about the numbers)
Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s not easy to sell a business that you’ve poured your heart and soul into. And selling an agribusiness isn’t as simple as selling a piece of equipment or land. Potential buyers must meet the owner’s criteria, often including that they must be a good bet to protect their legacy, which means they may also […] Read more
To debt, or not to debt
Debt is the big question as we head into 2025. Is more debt essential for farm success?
Reading Time: 8 minutes There are many pressures on the agriculture industry and its individual businesses. As Canadian growers and producers, our farms are expected to do more at every turn. Farms must maintain peak performance. That’s clear. And they must generate or leverage ahead-of-the-curve innovation and technology. But that’s just the start. They must also analyze and manage […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
