Reading Time: 10 minutes Her words were carefully chosen to avoid any sense of panic, and she delivered them in a flat, bureaucratic monotone. But on October 18, 2010, when U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chair Sheila Bair warned that the rapidly rising farmland values may be the next asset bubble, she actually didn’t have to worry. Farmers and […] Read more
If The Bubble Bursts
Jump Start
Reading Time: 7 minutes When Jean-Pierre Blackburn stepped up to the microphone to announce a new federal program to help young farmers, he knew that what he was going to say would cause heads to nod in agreement all across Canada. “We all know that beginning farmers face many obstacles,” the federal Minister of State for Agriculture said, listing […] Read more
Down At The Elevator
Reading Time: 6 minutes Greg Brenneman, who farms near Salina, Kansas quickly put the question is sharp context. His home state has moved away from wheat production, as Gerald Pilger reported in last month’s issue of COUNTRY GUIDE. Instead, farmers there are growing more profitable corn. It’s a change that is putting huge pressure on the state’s grain handling […] Read more
Grower University 2011 Series – for Feb. 15, 2011
Reading Time: 4 minutes Having a solid business strategy for your operation is like air to the lungs — essential to stay alive. Yet while contemplating a calculated strategy is critical, of equal importance is finding a way to give that strategy legs. So how can you incite your strategy, taking it from paper to reality? What is strategy, […] Read more
Your Own Paradise
Reading Time: 4 minutes There are lots of great things about life on the farm, but being able to shift gears may not be one of them. The farm is always there. Every view out every window makes you think of another job that needs to be added to a list that is already too long, and the views […] Read more
A Dog’s Life
Reading Time: 5 minutes Often farmers look at the urban man-dog relationship and shake their heads, asking how does that make sense. But when one Prairie grain farmer looked at that same picture, his question was different. Jason Skotheim asked, how can I get a piece of that? If you grew up on a farm, there’s a fairly high […] Read more
Where’s The Wheat?
Reading Time: 6 minutes Canada may have been the world’s leading exporter of wheat through the 1920s but to anyone farming in the West today, that seems like a very, very long time ago. We have almost forgotten that for decades, wheat was the reason we called the Prairies the breadbasket of the world. Or that around the globe, […] Read more
PERFECT PLACE
Reading Time: 2 minutes At first glance, the Rosthern area might seem an unlikely location for any processor or manufacturer. After all, you can’t go much farther north before the road system begins to peter out, replaced by mile upon mile of bush and trees. Tucked in between the North and South Saskatchewan rivers, the region is undeniably scenic […] Read more
After Oil
Reading Time: 6 minutes Efforts to find alternatives to oil are slowly gaining momentum, pushed on by fears about dwindling reserves and global warming. Indeed, sometimes it seems that every newspaper you pick up has a story about one new answer or another, such as biogas, biodiesel or hydrogen among others. Yet no single fuel has emerged as the […] Read more
MORE THAN JUST GOOD TIMING
Reading Time: 2 minutes Jason Skotheim and his partners couldn’t have known it at the time, but their fledgling business was about to get a shot in the arm from events entirely beyond their control. It was late winter 2007 and Meg Smart, professor of small animal nutrition from the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine, recalls […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
