Reading Time: 5 minutes Yvonnick Jambon knows the danger point. You start with an iconoclastic new kid on the block like Nufarm. It’s highly entrepreneurial, it grows fast, and it generates an enormous amount of its energy out of its biggest asset — the fact that it isn’t the other guys. At first, growth looks sweet. But then comes […] Read more
Going For The Dream
The Competitiveness Fallacy
Reading Time: 6 minutes If only it was true. According to today’s competition mantra, as long as we’re more efficient, productive and low cost than anyone else, the future is ours, both as individual farmers and as Canadian agriculture as a whole. Instead, it’s becoming clearer that getting competitive isn’t enough. For most of us, in fact, it won’t […] Read more
More Horses
Reading Time: 5 minutes It was the shot that re-ignited the horespower war. Back in 2005, Winnipeg-based Versatile launched its HHT line with a flagship tractor boasting an unheard of 535 horsepower. That gave it 35 more horses than either John Deere’s 9620 or Case IH’s STX500, which were among the leaders until then. But it was hardly the […] Read more
Bump Up Asset Values – for May. 31, 2011
Reading Time: 2 minutes This year Canadian accountants will move to the international financial reporting standards (IFRS) for public companies. Meanwhile, private companies can choose one of two options IFRS or Accounting Standards for Private Enterprise (ASPE). The acronyms seem bureaucratic, but the impact for farmers can be real. About two million private businesses operate in Canada, and although […] Read more
Waiting For The Flood
Reading Time: 5 minutes APRIL 10 So much water coming from the west toward our farm south of Weyburn in southern Saskatchewan. And it’s coming so fast. A friend phones to ask about using our floating pump. We have to say no. We drive by a neighbour, busy ditching water away from where his new basement is flooded. Abandoning […] Read more
BOOK REVIEW
Reading Time: 4 minutes Enchantment: The Art Of Changing Hearts, Minds, And Actions By Guy Kawasaki Portfolio / Penguin $33.50 Reviewed by Tom Button, CG Editor This book certainly isn’t about farming. At first glance, in fact, it also seems to have nothing at all that it could teach farmers, being all about how to set unique goals for […] Read more
2006 The Year It All Changed
Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s a new dynamic. Today, crude oil prices and global currency trading are huge drivers across farm commodity markets, affecting prices much more than the spec funds, and often much more than simple supply and demand. Dr. Julieta Frank joined the Department of Agribusiness and Agricultural Economics at the University of Manitoba in early 2009 […] Read more
Have You Any Wool?
Reading Time: 4 minutes After decades of low wool prices, Canada’s 10,000 sheep producers are warming up to the perfect storm of high prices and low world supplies. “We expect much-improved wool prices for the upcoming year for both finer and coarse micron wools,” says Eric Bjergson, manager of the Canadian Co-operative of Wool Growers in Ottawa. For years, […] Read more
Vital Statistics
Reading Time: 9 minutes There are almost as many financial ratios as seed varieties, and choosing which are most meaningful for your farm — and most helpful for how you manage for success — can be more than difficult. It can be positively head spinning. Should you track current ratio or working capital? Is ROA a good guide, or […] Read more
Cooking Up A Profit
Reading Time: 10 minutes At some point or other, everyone who has gone to farm meetings has had the valueadded sermon preached at them. The basic speech comes with a few variations, but regardless whether it’s delivered by a slick consultant, an earnest public servant or even just a smart-aleck journalist, it always comes with the same main points. […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
