Reading Time: 9 minutes No matter how progressive we think agriculture is becoming for ourselves, for our wives and for our daughters, there’s still a prevalent attitude that farming is “men’s work.” Now a new ethos is gaining ground, and anyone who subscribes to the men’s-work way of thinking is being asked — well, ordered really — to get […] Read more
Turning girls into farmers
Should you raise daughters differently to succeed at farming? This mother, daughter and granddaughter know their answer
Editor’s Note: Be it resolved…
We’re heading into another meeting season, and here’s a topic that’s actually worth making a resolution out of and standing up to move. Clearly, there won’t be progress if you don’t
Reading Time: 2 minutes Obviously, you don’t have to get very far away from the farm to lose sight of the fact that the real energy that’s driving agriculture isn’t some GMO breakthrough, or some new chemical innovation or even some amazingly brilliant bit of electronic engineering. Nor is it the price of grain, or the value of the […] Read more
Leader development explained
Reading Time: 3 minutes In my last article I reported that leadership has been shown to account for 37.6 per cent of the variability in business performance. I commented that small business leaders haven’t tapped this personal competitive advantage to achieve more with the resources they already have. But as we know, it is one thing to champion the […] Read more
Job descriptions
Two farm specialists build the case to prove why job descriptions will save you time, money and aggravation
Reading Time: 4 minutes Are job descriptions worth the effort? Simply put, the experts say the answer is a clear yes. Or maybe we should make that YES! Job descriptions are foundational for good management, says Jade Reeve, manager of agri-jobs at the Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council (CAHRC) in Ottawa. Their usefulness goes beyond recruitment, she adds. “They […] Read more
Improving your farm today for tomorrow’s growth
Reading Time: 5 minutes When I am working with the most successful farm business families, there are some clear areas where they seem to focus their efforts. They understand the critical balance of work “on” the business and “in” the business. In preparing for this five-part series on how farmers today are continuously improving, one area that I kept […] Read more
Better steps for farm transition
Canadian agriculture is suffering a shortage of family farm advisers with the training and skills to help our farms through succession and transition
Reading Time: 6 minutes It’s expected that three in four Canadian farms will change hands in the next 10 years, many of them from one generation of the family to the next. But where will these farms find help they can trust to navigate their increasingly complex transitions? There aren’t enough trained and experienced farm advisers to go around […] Read more
Black swans
What will it take to knock Canada’s farmland market out of its holding pattern?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Canadian dollar “Excluding an extraordinary shock to production or commodity prices, a significant increase in the value of the Canadian dollar would have the biggest impact on the supply of farmland available for sale,” says Saskatchewan realtor Tim Hammond. A weak Canadian dollar is beneficial overall to Canadian farmers as they export the majority of […] Read more
Less of the same
Realtors report farm sales are slowing and that prices are stabilizing, which may be best for everyone
Reading Time: 5 minutes Barring major shocks to the agriculture sector, the outlook is for continued strong farmland values and tight farmland availability in Canada for the foreseeable future. “By and large, we see a very healthy, very robust farmland market out there, and it seems to be continuing,” says Tom Eisenhauer, president and CEO of Toronto-based Bonnefield, Canada’s […] Read more
Tough talk
How to respond to questions you don’t want to answer
Reading Time: 3 minutes In the age of social media, consumers are feeling empowered to ask more and more questions, which means that answering questions about farm practices has become another “to-do” on your already supercharged list. Farmers not only play an important role in the food conversation, they can be said to have a duty to participate in […] Read more
‘Super Keen’
Ag education is hot, and enrolment is booming from coast to coast
Reading Time: 8 minutes It’s inspiring for anyone in agriculture to talk to the principals and deans at ag-related academic institutions across the country. More than ever in history, young Canadians are pursuing careers in ag. In a nutshell, it’s because there are jobs in agriculture after school — good jobs that offer exciting and interesting career paths for […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
