Sensors that measure soil conditions on the fly may the the next step.

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

Leading with vision creates space for the next generation to rise alongside your example, says Arlen Motz.

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

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



“I would say, take every opportunity available to you... you will always learn something.” – Amelia Judge.

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

Some advice for finding a peer group is to look beyond your neighbourhood and find people farther away to connect with, perhaps via social media or at events or conferences over winter.

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


man and child in a farm field

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

One transition advisor says, ‘unspoken expectations are the silent killers of family farms.’

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

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

Troy Strozek and Michelle Schram, owners and operators of Fresh Roots Farm at Cartwright, Manitoba.

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