Reading Time: 3 minutes If you feel that marketing is getting tougher all the time, you aren t alone. Volatility in grain and oilseed pricing has increased dramatically, so it s no wonder farmers are having an even harder time pulling the trigger. The more volatile the markets, the more paralyzed with fear farmers become, says Scott Irwin, chair […] Read more
Pull The Trigger
Big Idea Bridging The Gap
Reading Time: 4 minutes When The 100-Mile Diet was topping bestseller lists in North America, the reaction of Canada s commercial-scale farmers barely rose to an apathetic OK, but so what? Most of our farmers after all are in the business of producing wholesome and affordable products that are then shipped as bulk commodities to distant cities or around […] Read more
5 Questions To Ask Your Market Adviser
Reading Time: 8 minutes Markets can be overtaken by hype and emotion, says ag economist Al Mussell. The last thing you need is an adviser or broker who injects even more. Before the frustration sets you storming out the back door, chucking your smart phone into the field and yelling some words that you aren t even supposed to […] Read more
BOOM VS. BUST
Reading Time: 8 minutes Canadian grain growers are in unfamiliar territory. Their farms are suddenly profitable. Even stranger, their farms are consistently profitable, mainly due to across-the-board strength in grain prices. And that s only the dizzy start. Suddenly, all the old economic laws about market cycles look like they were written for some other industry in some other […] 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
