Reading Time: 5 minutes We all know we are speaking to (and about) a different generation in today’s farming community. It’s a group that is rapidly growing in education, in financial knowledge and in their eagerness to do more, do it better and leave their legacy in the ag world. The idea at the centre of all of it […] Read more
A professional approach to agriculture pays off
Continuous improvement is important in today’s farming community
ABCD quartet of grain traders partner to digitize global trades
Reading Time: < 1 minute Chicago | Reuters – The world’s four largest agribusinesses are working together to standardize and digitize international grain trades using technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence, the companies announced on Thursday. Archer Daniels Midland Co, Bunge Ltd, Cargill Inc and Louis Dreyfus Co, known collectively as the ABCDs of global grain trading, said the […] Read more
U.S. pot firm Curaleaf to triple planned equity offering
Reading Time: 2 minutes Toronto | Reuters – U.S. cannabis retailer Curaleaf Holdings Inc is raising about $400 million, almost three times its original target, in Toronto, in a deal that would value the company at close to $4 billion, people familiar with the situation told Reuters. The move by the Wakefield, Massachusetts-based company, which also owns cannabis cultivation […] Read more
Importing the LEAN philosophy to your farm
Money Management: At first, it seemed ‘Lean’ might only work on small farms. Now it’s showing how to drive out waste and pump up profit on large farms too
Reading Time: < 1 minute Lean” is a management and organizational system originally developed by car manufacturer Toyota. There wasn’t a farm in sight. But now, after boosting balance sheets for so many other businesses worldwide, some think it’s about time mainstream agriculture got onboard. We will meet Indiana farmer Ben Hartman who has been applying Lean principles to his […] Read more
Embrace those business growing pains
Money Management: A look at how Lean manufacturing is implemented
Reading Time: 9 minutes Let’s say your farm business has been bumping along much as anyone would expect. You’ve been experimenting with some new crops, maybe investing in some updated technology along the way, all the while riding the inevitable ups and downs of the farming road. Then, out of the blue, something is keeping you up at night. […] Read more
Lean on this farm
Five steps for lean management
Reading Time: 7 minutes For the past 10 years, Ben Hartman and his wife Rachel Hershberger have been running a Lean farm near Goshen, Indiana. That’s “Lean” meaning efficient and highly productive, not in the sense of barely surviving. Today Hartman, author of The Lean Farm, is recognized as one of the United States’ leading experts on applying lean […] Read more
Strategies for successful onboarding
There are better ways for getting a new employee off to a great start, and they really do pay
Reading Time: 5 minutes “I wish they’d told me I was expected to make it a priority for my job” is a refrain Michelle Painchaud hears all too often. Employers somehow think that new employees should simply “get it,” say Painchaud, president of a Winnipeg company that specializes in helping farm businesses recruit and retain new employees. Unfortunately, it’s […] Read more
Got what it takes?
Cutting out the ‘middleman’ sounds like an obvious way to increase farm profitability. And sometimes, that’s exactly how it works out
Reading Time: 5 minutes Maybe there really isn’t anything new under the sun. For generations, farmers have looked at the yawning gap between what they get paid for their crops and livestock versus what consumers pay in the grocery store, and thought there’s got to be a way to capture more of the consumer dollar for the farm. No […] Read more
Corteva, huh?
Bryce Eger’s job is to get Canada’s farmers to react as positively to the new Corteva name as they do to the biggest brands in agriculture. Is that even possible?
Reading Time: 7 minutes The question is, should you care? The global merger of Dow and DuPont means that some of the most famous names in farm history are getting roped together under an entirely unknown name — “Corteva.” And somehow, all of us in agriculture are supposed to be persuaded to not only learn the new name, but […] Read more
Foreign control in Canadian ag sector still relatively low
Reading Time: < 1 minute CNS Canada – The percentage of foreign control, as a percentage of total assets, in the Canadian agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting sector was 1.6 per cent in 2016, according to data recently released by Statistics Canada. While that’s up from 1.1 per cent in 2012, it compares with foreign control in all industries (excluding […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
