Reading Time: 6 minutes Farmers across Canada are doing their very best to integrate business practices into their farming operations. They understand that maximizing the success of a farm business takes more than production excellence. But what business practices should they make standard, and why? Let’s first look at where farmers have started from, based on a study called […] Read more
Is your farm keeping up with the times?
These eight practices are becoming the standard for smart Canadian farmers. Are you using them all?
The open source farmer
For Dorn and Sarah Cox, building an ag internet will bring the power back in farmer’s hands
Reading Time: 7 minutes About 10 years ago, New Hampshire farmer Dorn Cox was thinking how agriculture will need new ways of tackling such huge challenges as climate change, biodiversity loss and depleted agricultural soils. In the past, the collaborative approach had always saved agriculture. Farmers have pooled their ideas, shared their results and found big solutions much faster […] Read more
A hunger for opportunity
From their eastern Ontario farm, Shelley Spruit is rediscovering old wheats, and how to turn consumer trends into an impressive, farm-based business plan
Reading Time: 9 minutes Shelley Spruit likes to say she began a thriving farm business with a single cup of seed. In fact, there’s a certain rightness to her choosing those exact words, as if it was a recipe. After all, Spruit can run a kitchen and turn out five-course meals just as well as she operates a farm […] Read more
Family through succession: Putting the Hunter plan into operation
"The best thing you can do to protect your legacy is to be a part of planning what it will be.”
Reading Time: 7 minutes We wrap up the Hunter family succession story with this final article in our five-part series. It has been a remarkable venture for our team to share with Country Guide readers the transition-planning journey undertaken by this family. The process took just over one year, from the start to the finish of the plan, and […] Read more
Farming in 2030: Big data
The last time there was a change this big in farming, it was mechanization. The question is: are you open to exploring how it can work for you?
Reading Time: 5 minutes If you’ve got a cell phone anywhere close to you as you read this, you’re part of the data revolution in agriculture, whether you realize it or not, and whether you want to be or not. That’s probably a good thing. Certainly, the potential benefits are amazing. “The smartphone is going to be one of […] Read more
How volunteering is good for you
Reading Time: 4 minutes It can seem like there’s no end of stories, opinions and advice to help farmers transition the farm business to the next generation. But how do you transition yourself? How do you live with retirement? Volunteering helped Shirley Lahn and her late husband Howard when they were busy farming, and then through the transition and […] Read more
Actually, black swans can be good for us too
We should expect black swans to arise more frequently than in past
Reading Time: 3 minutes It’s part of our language now. A black swan is an event that is random and unpredicted and that brings broad consequences. The term originated in the late 1600s after the discovery of black swans in Western Australia. Until then, everyone believed swans could only be white. The discovery meant sometimes we get what we […] Read more
From good boss to great
Saskatchewan farm advisor and HR specialist Marianne Hawkins offers practical tips on making the transition
Reading Time: 5 minutes We’ve all heard the adage “people quit bosses, not jobs.” Maybe you have quit a boss yourself. If so, you’ll remember why. Perhaps they were always complaining, or maybe they played favourites, or they treated you as if they thought you were always trying to cheat them. Maybe, too, they would never admit their own […] Read more
Real blockchain payoffs
Sure, a lot of what you hear about blockchain technology is hype. But there are also very real pathways to higher net returns
Reading Time: 10 minutes By now, we’ve all heard about the new kid on the ag tech block, known as blockchain. But we’re far from understanding what the use of blockchain is going to mean at the farm level. What benefits will it provide? Will its chain-of-custody and traceability for identity-preserved (IP) crops, including seed, keep Canada competitive? Is […] Read more
Discovering haskap
Is this the next superfood that will spawn a generation of new farm enterprises across the country?
Reading Time: 8 minutes At age 47, Don Northcott was casting about for new business opportunities. Some 20 years earlier, the Prince Edward Island native with a BSc in taxonomy had founded Phytocultures, a company specializing in plant tissue-culture technology for seed-potato production. His cutting-edge work earned him a worldwide reputation as a respected leader in potato-plant propagation. After […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
