Reading Time: 3 minutes Many businesses, in farming and elsewhere, have no formal plan. Some are happy with the result, many are not. But many discover that developing a strategic plan and carefully implementing it has two effects. First is that it helps identify the desired outcome (where you’re going, your vision for the future). Second, it identifies the […] Read more
Strategy: The foundation of your farm
AME Management: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
Finding the right agricultural niche
Is niche diversification really the right strategy for your farm? Your best answer may come from answering this: ‘How driven are you?’
Reading Time: 5 minutes The reasons for wanting to diversify the farming operation are almost as diverse as the opportunities themselves. On many farms, it’s because expansion is so costly at today’s land prices, so the only way to grow is to intensify. Or it may be because there are more generations needing to draw income from the operation. […] Read more
The best farm advice
These five questions will help you be sure you’ve got the right business advisers for your farm
Reading Time: 8 minutes It’s not a bad thing to seek outside advice — as long as it’s good advice. No matter how smart you are, you can’t be aware of all your options and opportunities. We all need great input that we can ruminate on, evaluate and implement, and this great input must come from people we are […] Read more
The challenge of diversification
The odds that your diversification plan will succeed are just one in five. But you can stack the deck
Reading Time: 6 minutes For decades, on-farm diversification has been talked about, ruminated on, spit at and swallowed whole. We’ve seen underdogs become successes, and we’ve also seen outrageous failures, even when they had big government backing. At the same time, economies of scale have propelled non-diversified farms to unbelievable sizes, backed by the five-year bull market in grains. […] Read more
Sharpen your pencils
It’s time for a hard look at your rental land. How much does it make sense to pay?
Reading Time: 5 minutes I know I’m not alone. the squeeze is on all across Canada, and everyone can point to sets of numbers like the ones I’m looking at in Ontario, with a short 2014 growing season and with off-the-combine corn well below $4 per bushel. So Country Guide asked the Ontario ag ministry’s farm business analyst John […] Read more
Farm debt ratio in Canada could create an agricultural ‘bust’
Will history repeat itself, with a sell-off fuelled by farm debt?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Are we heading into another bust in agriculture, as happened in the late 1920s and in the 1980s? This is the fear of some farmers, and of some agricultural economists too. George Brinkman, professor emeritus at the University of Guelph, believes Canadian farmers are seriously over-leveraged and that there simply is not enough farm income […] Read more
Life insurance strategies for your farm
These 5 strategies can be serious winners -- but be prepared for some equally serious homework
Reading Time: 5 minutes If everything is tied up in fixed assets when a major change happens, even the best-managed farms can stumble and fall. Debts suddenly become unmanageable, family farms get bogged down in the mud of unachievable succession, and estates get devoured by tax liability. Setting up a rational way to deal with these situations ahead has […] Read more
Networking and the farm
In the first of two parts, networking expert Donna Messer explains why her work should matter to you
Reading Time: 5 minutes If you challenge yourself to describe a farmer in 10 words or less, before you’re halfway through, you’ll find yourself reaching for words like independent, autonomous and self-reliant. And no wonder. With all the risks and stresses of agriculture, farmers have earned the rights to that image of strength, resiliency and self-determination. But, as every […] Read more
When the SPCA comes knocking
Understanding your rights and duties
Reading Time: 3 minutes Recent media coverage of alleged abuse at Chilliwack Cattle Sales in B.C. has sparked questions about an owner’s obligations when dealing with animal abuse investigators. What are your rights and responsibilities when an investigator arrives at your doorstep? Inspector powers Animal cruelty is prohibited under the Criminal Code, which applies across Canada. In practice, most […] Read more
Meeting the customer’s need for farm equipment
New Holland veers away from corporate mega-dealers
Reading Time: 6 minutes When New Holland vice-president Abe Hughes spoke to a room full of farm media at the company’s North American headquarters in Pennsylvania in July, he wanted to talk about more than the shiny new iron parked outside. It was important, of course, to highlight the innovation in the brand’s 2015 equipment introductions, but Hughes also had […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
