To cut costs, Warren Jibb focused on bypassing old sales networks and going straight to the source with online purchasing. “COVID-19 hit the fast-forward button,” he says.

Resilient farmers vs. COVID-19: Shadyway Farms Limited

Resiliency is helping farmers take on the pandemic and more, writes Darrell Wade. For this article, he looks at the power of innovation

Reading Time: 6 minutes What a year for everyone, in every sector, in every single part of the globe. For the first time in most of our lives, we faced a global pandemic. As a pandemic, it saw no boundaries in any industry, in any part of the world. Every single one of us faced challenges. Same storm, different […] Read more

"It’s hard for people to admit they have a problem,” says Art Lange. Then the day comes when they basically have no choice.

From bad to worse, to better again

How one farm couple and their financial advisor restructured significant debt to dig them out of dire financial circumstances

Reading Time: 6 minutes Art Lange, left, walks the field edge and says that in an ideal world, every farm would make money every year and every farm manager would always make the best financial decisions. But it’s not a perfect world. Well-kept financial records help. So do staying on top of production costs and following a budget, but […] Read more


Toronto’s golden Greenbelt

Toronto’s golden Greenbelt

Now that the world’s largest greenbelt has outlasted the political controversies, could you farm there?

Reading Time: 8 minutes When Ontario’s Greenbelt turned 15 this past February, all four of Ontario’s political parties gathered at Queen’s Park to celebrate. According to Michael Young, communications advisor for the Greenbelt Foundation, the event was “a positive and convivial occasion, with a sense that we were all coming together with the shared belief that the Greenbelt must […] Read more

Increasingly, educated farmers are bringing a world of new ideas back to the farm, says Sask. rancher Adrienne Ivey.

‘I’m a Canadian farmer’

In a summer of so much change, with regional differences as big as ever and the differences between farm sectors seeming to multiply, who really knows what “I’m a farmer” means?

Reading Time: 12 minutes There’s absolutely no such thing as a “typical” Canadian farm, let alone a typical farmer. Big statistics describe Canada’s farmers as a whole, though they tell only a small part of the story. For starters, there aren’t many of you around anymore, and fewer with every passing decade: 271,935 at last count. But you take […] Read more


This summer, rural Albertans will be able to access the free Crowd Security app to help tackle rural crime.

Rural crime: There’s an app for that

Rural crime rates are going up because criminals think they won’t get caught. We’ve got to change that, and this app may help

Reading Time: 9 minutes As I was writing this article, I learned through a Twitter post that a neighbouring farm five km away had experienced a break and enter of their farm shop. The Twitter post encouraged people in the community to check their shops to see if anyone else had been victimized. Unfortunately, I did not see the […] Read more

Young people who grew up on the farm wanting to pursue a farming career must consider multiple factors when also deciding for a higher education.

Social (un)distancing

Canada’s young farm grads have learned how to capture the benefits of social networking despite living in a kind of isolation the rest of Canada is experiencing for the first time

Reading Time: 7 minutes When Blair Cummins left the farm where he grew up to go to the University of Saskatchewan and get his bachelor of science in agriculture in the 1970s, he could count on one hand the number of people he knew who were pursuing higher education. “Out of my generation, I only know two others that […] Read more


Mike Sharman: “Don’t give up.” Persistence is a winner.

Summer Series: Advice for Young Farmers

Best Advice: If there was one piece of advice you wish somebody had given you (and that you had listened to) when you were just starting out on the farm, what would that be?

Reading Time: 5 minutes Once they’ve been in the biz for a few years, some farmers wish they hadn’t followed certain advice. Others wish they had. And others are happy with what they’ve accomplished based on advice they’d still follow if they had to do it all again. Here, a few farmers share what they’ve learned and offer their […] Read more

Doug Baron cuts the cake celebrating 20 years of giving by the Carberry and Area Community Foundation.

Rural communities take the charitable lead

Once again, the generosity of farmers is proving vital in rural Canada. This time, it helps to get good financial advice

Reading Time: 8 minutes The Baron family farm is close to the Manitoba town of Carberry in more ways than one. The farm is located right on the edge of the town, halfway between Brandon and Portage la Prairie, and the Barons have called it home since their grandparents homesteaded here in the 1930s. That makes some very deep […] Read more


Many major trends experts foresee are already underway and will continue to play out in the ag sector over the next decade and beyond.

What the future farm could look like in 2030

Future farm: Maybe it seems more like fiction today, but every year brings this picture of the future closer

Reading Time: 6 minutes Big change is coming. In the words of Shrek, “Change is good, Donkey!” It’s also inevitable, which farmers probably know more than anyone else. There are, of course, differing opinions about what farming will look like 10 years from now. Will farms be larger? Probably. Will weather be more unpredictable? Almost certainly. Will technologies like […] Read more

"A real-world business.” For dean Josie Van Lent, Lakeland’s goal is to send students back to the farm groomed to become managers and leaders.

When college grads come home to the farm

If your kids come back from college and just end up behind the wheel of a tractor, you're missing some serious opportunities

Reading Time: 9 minutes On a sun-dappled morning in mid-September, 80 young men and women assemble in a large auditorium at the University of Manitoba’s campus. They’re here for a day of orientation as they begin two years of study towards their agricultural diplomas. Among them is 18-year-old George Meggison. He’s following in the footsteps of two sisters, as […] Read more