Reading Time: 6 minutes Back-to-back years of ugly weather mean many farmers will be re-thinking rents this December, especially farmers who still have crop out in the field or who have experienced yield or quality losses, or who’ve been hit with increased harvest and drying costs. If a land lease is up for renewal next year, they’ll be asking […] Read more
Reaching fair rents for farmland
There are at least eight ways to negotiate land rental rates. But is there a right way?
Seven strategies of successful farmers
Here’s new evidence that business skills increase farm income, no matter what size the farm
Reading Time: 5 minutes With the harvest finally in the bin, farmers across the country are evaluating their farm management practices and they are making management decisions for the future. Business management skills are more important than ever as farmers face huge challenges, including unpredictable weather, volatile markets, labour shortages, succession, and much more. In this environment, a great […] Read more
Family through succession: Moving succession to a financial discussion
As we look into concrete financial options, a sense of excitement replaces the family’s initial worries
Reading Time: 7 minutes Many of you have been following our journey with the Hunter family. To recap, the Hunters are a fourth-generation farm family with a mixed crop and dairy farm in southwestern Ontario. Mary’s husband Jack passed away two years ago. She is 80 now and continues to live on the farm. Her only child, Bruce, works […] Read more
Making a name in crop protection
Can FMC build a new company you’ll actually want to do business with?
Reading Time: 7 minutes The insiders at FMC have a plan for getting you to become a loyal customer of a company you’ve barely heard of in an industry dominated by huge names you can’t forget, like BASF, Bayer and Syngenta. Can FMC do it? The big test may be in your mailbox right now. As a company, FMC […] Read more
The skills you’ll need as farms become more digital
Technology is transforming agriculture at a speed we hardly grasp. Will yours be among the farms that emerge stronger?
Reading Time: 5 minutes In October, Country Guide covered the report “Farmer 4.0: How the Coming Skills Revolution Can Transform Agriculture” published by RBC, with its emphasis on how the era of super-automation will change how we farm. “As Canadian farmers leave traditional tasks to smart machines, and focus on strategy and systems, they’ll be better positioned than ever […] Read more
Farm CEO: The complete farm executive
Reading Time: 3 minutes What does the basic mindset of a farm CEO look like? I’m currently using a three-factor model to describe what I think makes a highly effective farm executive. The first is business results. Obviously at the end of the day if we don’t define success and achieve objectives that keep us in business, never mind […] Read more
Why aren’t farm women fighting harder?
It’s time to win back the ground we've have lost in the past 30 years
Reading Time: 9 minutes In the November issue of Country Guide, Saskatchewan farmer Leigh Rosengren challenged women to have an honest conversation about the career barriers individual women face living on farms in rural Canada. Further investigation reveals we need a hard look at the agriculture industry as a whole. Despite decades of work, women are still largely shut […] Read more
Meet me in the boardroom
How can this handful of Prairie farmers win, and keep winning, the contract to supply the malt for world-renowned Lagunitas?
Reading Time: 11 minutes Drive by any of your wheat or canola fields; what you’re seeing is probably going to end up in a loaf of bread or a bottle of oil. But which loaf or bottle? Where? That’s an entirely different question. When Sterling Hilton looks out at his malting barley fields near Strathmore, Alta., he can tell […] Read more
Rural communities take the charitable lead
Once again, the generosity of farmers is proving vital in rural Canada. This time, it helps to get good financial advice
Reading Time: 8 minutes The Baron family farm is close to the Manitoba town of Carberry in more ways than one. The farm is located right on the edge of the town, halfway between Brandon and Portage la Prairie, and the Barons have called it home since their grandparents homesteaded here in the 1930s. That makes some very deep […] Read more
Farm CEO: Culture matters
Are you paying attention to the culture of your farm or farm business?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Why should we care about the culture of our business? Culture captures the essence of what makes a business tick, yet it is poorly understood. Culture has reached cliché status as a management concept, and that’s regrettable because understanding what culture really is, its connection to leadership, how it is created and how it has […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
