Reading Time: 3 minutes Mechanical Self-directed Externally managed Active Mechanical Self-directed Disciplined marketer Markets are efficient Risk adverse High debt Poor pricing skills Externally managed Undisciplined marketer Markets are efficient Risk adverse High debt Poor pricing skills Active Disciplined marketer Markets are inefficient Risk seeking Low debt Good pricing skills Undisciplined marketer Markets are inefficient Risk seeking Low debt […] Read more
A new marketing strategy – for Apr. 14, 2009
When Louis Balcaen began to look at advisors as an investment, not a cost, the next step was to build them into a team
Reading Time: 2 minutes Be sure you get yourself a quarterback, Balcaen says. It s essential to have someone with those talents. You usually get what you pay for, Louis Balcaen says at the start of our talk. It s his summary of a dozen years of bringing together a team including his banker, insurance agent, lawyer, and accountant […] Read more
Finding The Right Advisors – for Apr. 14, 2009
Reading Time: 2 minutes Start with word-of-mouth when selecting farm advisors but insist on professionals with an ag backgound Liz Robertson Liz Robertson, executive director of the Canadian Association of Farm Advisors (CAFA), likes the idea of team meetings, which she thinks minimize the back-and-forth phone calls between professionals. Robertson says that opposing views arise in meetings that can […] Read more
to manage your value chain better
Reading Time: < 1 minute In truth, few of us really even consider it. Despite all the talk about refocusing our businesses on the consumer, it s a tough sell. It already takes all our time to get as efficient as possible in the field and in the barn, plus looking after all the endless demands of farming, from working […] Read more
Something Ventured… Much More Gained
Reading Time: 2 minutes Peace River farmers Joe Friesen (l.), Kevin Peters, Russel Friesen and Jason Neudorf say their joint venture makes each of them more efficient, and more profitable. Joint ventures are gaining ground across farm country What were they thinking? After all, it s not like there s a shortage of feed mills in Canada. It s […] Read more
What’s The Fit For Ag? – for Apr. 14, 2009
Reading Time: 2 minutes Other sectors use joint ventures much more often. In the construction industry, for example, smaller subcontractors team up to form a larger general contractor that they all perform work for and then bill for their services. In Alberta s oil and gas industry too, companies often partner on projects but maintain their own separate businesses. […] Read more
Wave Of The Future? – for Apr. 14, 2009
Reading Time: 2 minutes Through a company called AgStream, Gary Pike of Calgary s Pike Management Group was among the first to actively court joint-venture arrangements with growers in Western Canada under which outside investors provide operating money to farmers to produce canola, in exchange for a portion of the crop. Pike says growers showed a fair amount of […] Read more
The company that’s most famous for what it doesn’t make tells us why it thinks farmers across Canada will want to watch the next moves it makes in agriculture
Reading Time: 2 minutes Why does the world s largest chemical company want to muck about in the small, fragmented and highly specialized world of Canadian agriculture? The commercials were so offbeat, they instantly broke through the blur of me-too television advertising. At BASF, we don t make a lot of the products you buy, the velvety voice said. […] Read more
Www.Dtnmarketspace.Com
Reading Time: < 1 minute With over 600,000 subscribers to DTN and its magazine PROGRESSIVE FARMER, this web-based company has major market share in the U. S. Midwest and south, and it is also has a huge following across Canada of farmers who live by its ag weather and market reports. Even so, DTN is more than an ag company. […] Read more
Fiddleheads
Reading Time: < 1 minute It s no use to me, it s been there for generations. Nick Secord is telling me about the reaction he got from the previous owner of his land when approached about selling it. It wasn t a surprise, really, because the Port Colborne, Ont. property is a swamp. Then Secord chuckles as he recalls […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
