Reading Time: 6 minutes If they think of it at all, many Canadian farmers think of custom combining as something for Americans. North of the border, the conventional wisdom is, you can’t rely on custom. Time’s too short during harvest. You need to own your own machine so you can use it whenever you need it. But there are years […] Read more
Tough Call
Where In The World?
Reading Time: 6 minutes Trade disputes, extreme weather, political upheaval. You name it, it impacts Canada’s farmers overnight, even if it happens half a world away. Where will the next big shock come from? Looking backward is the best place to start. COUNTRY GUIDE asked three agricultural news hounds to retrace the last six months and name the biggest […] Read more
Proving It
Reading Time: 6 minutes I should make it clear from the start that when I set out to write about value chains, I was more than a tad skeptical. In my experience, value chains were nothing but a load of jargon, and the only reason we keep hearing anything about them at all is that consultants haven’t yet burned […] Read more
Better Negotiating
Reading Time: 6 minutes Some farmers seem to think negotiating is a full-contact sport. But it’s more than a game — it’s serious business. Nothing feels better than talking your way into a great deal, like getting your dealer to lop a few thousand off the price of a new combine. Heck, some of us even get a charge […] Read more
Joint Success
Reading Time: 7 minutes It’s a question that Myron Teneycke asked five years ago, and the joint-venture owners of STR Farms at Young, Sask. haven’t looked back since. Nor has the farm. It has grown — going from 8,000 to 11,200 acres — and its staff has grown too. Today, STR pays a full-time managing couple, plus three full-time […] Read more
Good Neighbours
Reading Time: 5 minutes I’ve never actually seen a barn-raising. And if the other women in my neighbourhood are holding quilting bees, they’re certainly not inviting me. The olden days are long gone. Yet farmers are still getting together to share information, news, ideas, and even work. These relationships are generally casual, undocumented, flexible and, well, just downright neighbourly. […] Read more
If You Died Today…
Reading Time: 7 minutes Jolene Brown was looking directly at the panel of three who had just lost their farming spouses. Then she asked the question. “If you had one more day, what would you say, what would you ask and, what would you do?” Brown knew it was a tough question. She’s a popular speaker, farm business adviser […] Read more
Bump Up Asset Values
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 […] Read more
Basis For Change
Reading Time: 5 minutes In these volatile times, cost control is essential. Unfortunately, there’s a whole category of costs that are hard for growers to manage. They’re post-harvest costs, including elevation, freight, inspection fees, storage costs, and other grain-handling fees, and on most grain sales, they’re virtually invisible. Instead, they’re blended into just one catch-all — the basis — […] Read more
Fuel Fight
Reading Time: 5 minutes The high-price executives at the big companies don’t always read the public mood very accurately. So inevitably, their million-dollar ad campaigns can go splat, despite all the big promises that they’ll win market share. It’s happened before. Ford’s gambit to become the safety leader with its cars in the 1950s is a case that comes […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
