Concept of making money agriculture

Managing your foreign exchange risks

Are you ready to deal with volatile currency values and their potential impact on your net income?

Reading Time: 4 minutes Canada is now the fifth-largest exporter of agricultural and agri-food products in the world. As an export-focused industry, Canadian farmers are regularly exposed to the often-volatile currency exchange market. And while exchange rates have always moved, the fact that we are now so closely linked to a global economy has heightened our exposure to the […] Read more

Far-away farming

Far-away farming

Do your research, get good help, and maybe farming overseas will work as well for you as it does for these two Canadian families

Reading Time: 7 minutes When Canadian farmers set up farms in distant places around the world, one of the consequences is exactly what you’d think. They learn about those countries. In fact, there’s nothing like farming overseas to learn about a region inside and out. The surprise, though, is how much they also learn about farming back in Canada. […] Read more


Young farmers in soybean fields before harvest

Pay your Millennials right

Too much? Too little? What’s the right compensation for the kids coming back to the farm?

Reading Time: 7 minutes Figuring how to compensate Millennials can be like driving through a snowstorm. You can’t see what’s ahead, there’s a very real possibility that you’ll hit the ditch. And yet you’ve got to get there. Country Guide caught up with New Brunswick farmer and consultant Cedric MacLeod as he was driving home through a snowstorm. At […] Read more

"Time is money,” says Natasha (left), with Elysia. “You want to do things right, but you want to do them quickly.”

Step two

After you survive the startup, it takes a whole different set of skills to keep a value-add business growing

Reading Time: 8 minutes When Country Guide first spoke to sisters Natasha and Elysia Vandenhurk six years ago, their lives were hectic. But in that way, it was a story familiar to anyone running a startup. The Vandenhurk sisters were in the midst of creating a direction for Three Farmers, a food company producing camelina oil products from crops […] Read more


Setting the operation up for year-round grazing also gives the Finns opportunities for off-farm work.

Environmental success

Alberta’s Graeme Finn combines his business and his environmental farm plans, and comes up with a paying strategy

Reading Time: 7 minutes Peer out from Graeme Finn’s back door and of course you’ll be struck by the Rocky Mountains in the distance, but it’s the rolling hills covered in diverse pastures of mixed grasses and legumes that are the real attraction at Southern Cross Livestock near Madden, Alta. It’s all part of the philosophy that the operation […] Read more

Young farmer standing in wheat field with hands on hips and looking forward at sunset

Growing your mid-sized farm

Mid-winter is a great time to review the financial tools that help you make the best decisions

Reading Time: 3 minutes Often when we talk about growing a business, the assumption is that the way to do it is by growing in size. In agriculture, that could be farming more land, increasing the number of livestock, buying more quota, among others. One of my favourite mantras is that “better is better before bigger is better.” In […] Read more


Major elevator companies have rarely if ever defaulted on payment, but it’s worth remembering that even they don’t guarantee beyond 90 days.

Making sure you get paid

Recent changes to the marketing system have prompted the entrance of new players, so it’s worth a refresher on who guarantees payment for grain, and for how long

Reading Time: 4 minutes Grain producers protect the investment they’ve planted, fertilized, watched grow, harvested and taken the pains to safely store, but it’s the Canada Grain Act that’s supposed to ensure financial protection from buyers that go bust or act unscrupulously. Farmers have never had to worry about payment from the large elevator companies which have historically dominated […] Read more

Canada’s farmers are already losing $1.5 billion, simply because they can’t find the employees needed for 
the work.

The job ahead

Canada faces its own farm labour gap, and it’s going to get much worse

Reading Time: 15 minutes A black binder sits on the table next to the job board at Aylmer Community Services. Glued to its cover is a stock photo of two hands holding a tiny seedling. Red letters proclaim its title: Agricultural and Farming Jobs.  In the steady stream of job seekers, however, few visitors to the jailhouse-turned-community service centre […] Read more


The multicultural workforce

Reading Time: 4 minutes At the end of the day, Tom Maloney says it all comes down to respect. The senior extension associate at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University has spent decades studying how to successfully manage multicultural teams, and he has advised farmers on how to best manage migrant labour […] Read more

Young farmer in soybean fields

Re-think the basics

An investment broker who cold-called me last month was more than a bit miffed by the time we hung up. Here’s why

Reading Time: 6 minutes During his sales pitch, the investment broker on the phone asked me what the value of land was where I farm. I told him I didn’t know. He sounded peeved and he questioned how as a farmer I could not know the cost of land in my area. I replied that he had not asked […] Read more