Reading Time: 4 minutes A German-language press release issued a few weeks ago by DLG, the German Agricultural Society, captures in a single word one of this year s most astute observations about the global farm machinery market. It s the German word innovationsoffensive, which means just the same on our side of the Atlantic, and is just as […] Read more
“The Innovations Offensive”
Growing More, Earning Less
Reading Time: 7 minutes The primary reason for the success and growth of North American agriculture has been the ability of Canadian and U.S. farmers to do two seemingly contradictory things simultaneously: increase productivity and at the same time, reduce production costs. By doing both, farmers remained competitive in the global marketplace despite decades of declining commodity prices. Unfortunately, […] Read more
CLICK AND PRINT
Reading Time: 9 minutes When there aren t enough hours in the day to even get all the essential jobs done, it s no surprise that writing job descriptions, drafting interview questions and carrying out performance reviews often plummets to the very bottom of the farm priority list. That doesn t make it wise, though. In fact, in a […] Read more
Four Steps For Managing Your Interest Rate Risks
Reading Time: 3 minutes As a banker, farmers often ask me, Where are interest rates headed? Increasingly, they are also asking an important second question: What can I do to manage the risks to my operation from interest rate movements? The simple response to where interest rates are going is: They will change. While that is not as concrete […] Read more
BIN THERE
Reading Time: 8 minutes It s a change you just can t hide. More and more farmers all across Canada are choosing on-farm bins as their primary strategy for value adding. At first glance, it seems an almost foolproof choice. You get the benefits of value adding without the costs of going into specialized crops, and without the risks […] Read more
Selling Themselves
Reading Time: 2 minutes It s an exaggeration to say that farmers and consumers are on opposite ends of the direct-marketing debate, with consumers wanting farmers to pull up their driveways and drop off the week s local food, and with farmers saying, Thanks, but that isn t what I do. But as exaggerations go, it isn t that […] Read more
Farm Direct
Reading Time: 6 minutes It s a funny thing to remember about the posh event where I first met Fred de Martines, but the striking thing about lunch was all the trendy meat served up with such great fanfare, including cuts that a generation ago we were told to turn up our noses at. Believe me, no one was […] Read more
He Picks U-Pick
Reading Time: 5 minutes Roly Reenders story starts out the way a lot of Canadian farm stories start, with Reenders taking over the family operation when his father retired. But that s about as far as the similarities go. Reenders father wasn t a typical farmer, and it wasn t a typical farm. Instead, his father was a full-time […] Read more
Better Off
Reading Time: 5 minutes Dwayne Logan is convinced. Any new farmer not starting off with a lot of money or help from their parents is better off taking the sustainable farming route, Dwayne tells me as we walk the 600 acres he and Shelley farm near Nesbitt, about 15 minutes south of Brandon, Man. The question is, what does […] Read more
In At The Start
Reading Time: 4 minutes Ross Bricker was a hard guy to get hold of that Tuesday. He wasn t in his office and his cellphone kept jumping right to voicemail. I wondered, is he on a conference call that just won t quit? Is he stuck in an endless meeting? Maybe he s on year-end, or has to put […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
