Aerial View of Tractors, Trucks and Agricultural Machinery Harvesting Fresh Potatoes

Attracting the right kind of capital in agriculture

Capital is required to grow the farm business but sometimes it takes an innovative approach

Reading Time: 2 minutes Agriculture’s future will rely on attracting capital. In the past, capital typically came from banks or family. But the changing demographic of farmers and farmland owners means that many farms and a tremendous amount of farmland will change hands over the coming decade. To add to the list of challenges, inflation and farmland appreciation has […] Read more

Jeff Rowe is CEO of the global Syngenta Group. He was recently combining corn at his family’s farm in Illinois.

In the combine

Syngenta leader Jeff Rowe talks about being prepared for leadership and the importance of listening to people

Reading Time: 3 minutes Jeff Rowe, CEO of the Syngenta Group, doesn’t often get home to his farm near Princeton, Illinois. He’s usually operating from his base in Basel, Switzerland, instead. But when he does get back to the Midwest, you might catch up to him running a planter in the spring or the combine in the fall, just […] Read more


In order to consider if growth is possible, it requires solving the growth formula for your farm.

The formula for farm growth

Capital + Risk + Execution = Farm SUCCESS

Reading Time: 3 minutes “Change is inevitable, growth is optional.” That’s how John C. Maxwell said it, and he might have said it best. It’s easy to look around the ag industry and see changes in the landscape. Suppliers, competitors and customers are consolidating and growing. Yet growth is often met with more scorn in farming than in these […] Read more

Finance 101 – What is a business plan?

Finance 101 – What is a business plan?

There’s more at stake this winter, and more than ever to gain

Reading Time: 5 minutes A business plan is like a road map for your farm. You can plan your route, set a destination and track progress. But without a map or a plan, how does a farm business owner know what success looks like, or even what you’re capable of achieving? Or, most importantly, how do you know when […] Read more


The Davis family had learned how much interest their sunflower fields could attract almost by accident.

Ontario growers bring ‘sun and fun’ to agri-tourism market

Could agri-tourism boost your farm income? The Davis family has some advice — “You gotta love, love, love people.”

Reading Time: 5 minutes Agri-tourism is trending. For farmers, agri-tourism is a way to diversify, to create new revenue streams and to capture more profit by selling direct to consumers without necessarily having to expand the land base. It can also be a way to make room for additional family members to join the farm business, easing the transition […] Read more

Saskatchewan’s Kevin and Melanie Boldt looked at their farm and they looked at their own skills and strengths. Was it time to transform the business?

Diversifying the farm helps build a new business

Who has time to manage a bigger, more diversified farm? The Boldts found how to say, “We do!”

Reading Time: 11 minutes When Melanie Boldt pivoted her business from a grain farm to the first vertically integrated meat producer and market in Saskatchewan, she took a “just do it” approach and leaned into the challenge to change, diversify and expand her family farm. That was 26 years ago, and looking back, Boldt says she’s not sure she […] Read more


Many farming operations are run through one or more corporations, which adds additional layers of complexity for transferring the underlying assets.

Legal considerations when transferring farm assets

Every farming operation is different and poses its unique challenges and considerations

Reading Time: 5 minutes The transferring of the land, buildings, equipment and quota that make up the farming operation can be thought of as the “meat and potatoes” of transition planning. Typically, once a plan has been developed for succession, there are assets that need to be transferred from one generation to the next. This can take the form […] Read more

It’s important to build understanding within your family and align goals for the future, says farm succession coach Maggie Van Camp.

Sharing your farm’s story with the next generation

Share your farm’s history and stories about your own early years to give succession a boost

Reading Time: 5 minutes Transitioning the farm to the next generation is an emotionally loaded process. Sometimes, not surprisingly, it can get bogged down and no one really knows what to do to get things moving again. This is a pattern Humboldt, Sask. farm succession coach Patti Durand has ofen seen when working with 350 farm families from across […] Read more


Setting up your retirement goals

Setting up your retirement goals

Decisions to make in your 40s, 50s and 60s

Reading Time: 5 minutes Every farmer will need an exit strategy, whether you’re looking forward to it or not. Age, health and family issues won’t wait forever. Besides, being proactive now can save tons of stress and family conflict and potentially thousands of dollars later on. It will make you happier too. So isn’t that worth thinking about? In […] Read more