Reading Time: 4 minutes On Feb. 25, 2008, Hard Red Spring wheat peaked at an incredible $24 a bushel on the Minneapolis exchange. “That affected the psyche of the entire grain market,” says Derek Brewin, professor at the University of Manitoba’s department of agribusiness and agricultural economics. The 2007 to 2008 price rallies set off a wave of farm […] Read more
Grain And Oilseed Farms – for Aug. 30, 2010
PIGS – for Aug. 30, 2010
Reading Time: 3 minutes Nowhere is it more true than in the hog sector. Abnormal is the new normal in Canadian agriculture overall, but the swine industry in particular experienced repeated, devastating blows during the five-year sample period. It used to be that revenue per pig produced was cyclical. Typically the price cycle was two years up, two down. […] Read more
Incorporation may still be the best option for your farm. Read on, though. You and your children could also come to regret it as the worst choice you ever made
Reading Time: < 1 minute While the sun poured into our accountant’s office earlier this spring, my husband and I shifted the conversation from filing income taxes into a direction that many and perhaps most Country Guide readers have wondered about too. Should we incorporate, we ask, or should we stay as a sole proprietorship? According to the 2006 federal […] Read more
Challenge #1 Weak Management
Reading Time: 2 minutes Carl Moore doesn’t hide his opinion about farm corporations. In fact, he wants to warn practically every farmer he sees. “I’ve seen too many disasters with farm corporations,” the farm adviser says. “I just shake my head when anyone says they want to incorporate.” The main reason Moore is so opposed, he says, is that […] Read more
Challenge #2 Succession Planning
Reading Time: 4 minutes Corporations do give farmers access to technical strategies that you simply can’t use in other management systems, including some sometimes-sophisticated strategies for separating the land from the business, for setting up voting and non-voting shares, and for determining exactly how and when shares will be transferred. For our experts, however, the question is whether the […] Read more
Challenge #3 Admin And Costs
Reading Time: 3 minutes Incorporating isn’t free. Nor is running a corporation. The differences aren’t massive, says accountant Geoff Garland, but they’re big enough that you’ll want to make sure you’re getting value for the extra legal and accounting expenditures. Garland says it doesn’t take a tremendous amount more to administer the farm books for a typical farm corporation […] Read more
Challenge #5 Tax Management
Reading Time: 3 minutes One of the major benefits of incorporating a farm is that farm net income is then taxed at a corporate rate. The savings vary across the country (see February Country Guide) but for example are about 35 per cent lower than personal income tax rates in Manitoba and for Ontario. In most cases, however, it’s […] Read more
Challenge #6 Dissolving The Corporation
Reading Time: 3 minutes Farm adviser Carl Moore is blunt. “Most people don’t realize that forming a corporation is very similar to marriage,” says Moore. “It’s very easy to get into but the only way out is divorce.” If you don’t think breaking up a farm corporation can be as messy as settling a divorce between feuding husbands and […] Read more
A complete set of wrenches seems as essential to farming as owning a tractor. Skinned knuckles from using them is proof you work smart. But, asks Michael Bevans (above left), is your shop actually good for your business?
Reading Time: < 1 minute Why ask dumb questions? Of course doing your own maintenance and repairs makes you a better farmer. How could it possibly be cheaper to pay someone else to do something you can do? Well, lets put the numbers to the test. But be prepared. It won t be as simple as you might think. Like […] Read more
AGbots
Reading Time: 2 minutes By borrowing airline technology, tomorrow s farm equipment will get much, much smaller than you re planning for. And a lot smarter too The airplane industry is already doing it. When those jets soar high over your farm, there s almost never a human actually flying them. Nor is there an air traffic controller actually […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
