Reading Time: 11 minutes When Melanie Boldt pivoted her business from a grain farm to the first vertically integrated meat producer and market in Saskatchewan, she took a “just do it” approach and leaned into the challenge to change, diversify and expand her family farm. That was 26 years ago, and looking back, Boldt says she’s not sure she […] Read more
Diversifying the farm helps build a new business
Who has time to manage a bigger, more diversified farm? The Boldts found how to say, “We do!”
‘Partner up’ to help diversify your farm
Rosemary Wotske and Cam Beard need new rules. Do you?
Reading Time: 6 minutes Farm partnerships are taking a new direction today. Of course there are still traditional arrangements — formal or informal — between farmers, like those that share the cost of equipment, and there are contractual arrangements, too, like those between a crop processor and a farmer delivering specific specs. More and more, though, farmers are partnering […] Read more
Legal considerations when transferring farm assets
Every farming operation is different and poses its unique challenges and considerations
Reading Time: 5 minutes The transferring of the land, buildings, equipment and quota that make up the farming operation can be thought of as the “meat and potatoes” of transition planning. Typically, once a plan has been developed for succession, there are assets that need to be transferred from one generation to the next. This can take the form […] Read more
The slow evolution toward real-time variable rate fertilizer
Variable rate fertilizer to apply the best rate for each acre has merit, but the cost and the hassle to make it work does not appeal to many farmers. The return does not seem to justify the work required. Can we change that with a real-time on-the-go system?
Reading Time: 5 minutes We need to hit the “easy button” on variable rate fertilizer and move away from the default blanket application. But for that to happen, the variable rate (VR) system must become as seamless and easy as the blanket application. And more profitable. One can envision an on-the-go system like optical weed spraying, except in this […] Read more
Sharing your farm’s story with the next generation
Share your farm’s history and stories about your own early years to give succession a boost
Reading Time: 5 minutes Transitioning the farm to the next generation is an emotionally loaded process. Sometimes, not surprisingly, it can get bogged down and no one really knows what to do to get things moving again. This is a pattern Humboldt, Sask. farm succession coach Patti Durand has ofen seen when working with 350 farm families from across […] Read more
Setting up your retirement goals
Decisions to make in your 40s, 50s and 60s
Reading Time: 5 minutes Every farmer will need an exit strategy, whether you’re looking forward to it or not. Age, health and family issues won’t wait forever. Besides, being proactive now can save tons of stress and family conflict and potentially thousands of dollars later on. It will make you happier too. So isn’t that worth thinking about? In […] Read more
How to get started on your farm succession plan
Reading Time: 4 minutes We see a lot of farming clients who, at the end of a call, will say, “We should get together to discuss our succession plan sometime.” But actually getting started requires intentional effort from the decision makers in the family. The first step is making the succession plan a priority. Succession planning is more than […] 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
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
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
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
