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Tag Archives Business/Finance

Wheat fields being harvested
Guide Business

Incorporation pushes farms into higher gear

With 30,000 incorporated farms on 50 million acres, farm incorporation is on the rise in Canada, and not just because of the tax savings. In fact, these other benefits can be even more valuable

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Reading Time: 4 minutes Somewhere between loading trucks and getting ready for seeding on his family’s farm near Fort MacLeod, Alta., Stephen Vandervalk stops midway through our conversation, breathes deeply and tilts his head. “I can’t even imagine trying to operate without a corporation,” he says. “How could we compete to buy land at 35 to 45 per cent […] Read more
Guide Business

Small business corporations hit by new tax rules

Some major changes to how Canada Revenue Agency handles small business corporations are costing incorporated farms, especially those focused on expansion

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Reading Time: 2 minutes Tax rules change. Some governments try to lower taxes, others claw back those tax wins. Currently, Ottawa seems to be gnawing away at what some see as the very foundation of this country’s economy, small business profits. Incorporated businesses may be losing some of the tax advantages they’ve had over sole proprietorships, but are still […] Read more
Amilcare Merlo (l) greets Manulift president Martin Drolet, whose company retails Merlo equipment in Canada.
Guide Business, Machinery

‘Senior’ management

At 82, Amilcare Merlo is still planning the long-term future of the company that will be his legacy

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Reading Time: 5 minutes In February I was invited to tag along with a group of dealers and their customers as they paid a visit to telehandler manufacturer Merlo’s assembly plant just outside the historic old city of Cuneo, Italy. When everyone had arrived, we stood on a balcony at the plant and watched several telehandlers go through a […] Read more
Hand going through the field
Guide Business, Management

Small SWOT, big ideas

Summer Business: This exercise to determine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats can be a best next step for smaller farms

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Reading Time: 4 minutes Over the last four years Ontario organic farmer and consultant David Cohlmeyer has completed over 20 business plans for smaller and medium-sized farms. But before doing a business plan, with updated budget, balance sheets, marketing plans and cash flow statements, Cohlmeyer works with the clients to do a SWOT analysis. “It’s a tool, a good […] Read more
Piggy Bank and canadian dollars close up shot
Guide Business, Management

Stress tests for change

Here’s a quick way to keep your eye on your cash flow projections this summer to help you plan loan payments and expenses this fall

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Reading Time: 4 minutes Knowing how to read and understand financial statements is one of the first steps in assessing financial risk, helping you track how you’re doing compared to previous years (or against sector averages), and how any changes may have an impact on your bank account. From a financial perspective, stress testing can be the ultimate proactive […] Read more
farmer loading grain
Crops, Guide Business, Livestock

Know your farm financial numbers

Which financial ratios could you be tracking this summer to make the best decisions this fall?

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Reading Time: 8 minutes Farming is a tough business. Weather risk, volatile markets, potential trade issues, input costs, and the steep investment in land and equipment mean today’s farmers must have formidable management skills to weather the storms and grasp the opportunities. In that context, your financial numbers are a lot like the numbers you get from the field, […] Read more
There are so many producers who have great products but can’t get them from point A to point B, especially at volume,” Ferguson says.
Guide Business

The Farm Network takes farm food products beyond local

The Farm Network is pioneering a new category of food business, helping farmers grow their sales of local products to reach commercial scale

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Reading Time: 5 minutes When Tyler Ferguson found a distinct gap in Canada’s local food system, he decided to fill it by starting his own sales, marketing and distribution company focused on getting more food products from the farm into retail. That was the first step. But only the first step. “I noticed that a lot of local food […] Read more
Rocky Mountain Equipment’s flagship store in High River, Alta., is the model that executives hope will eventually be mirrored
at all the company’s locations.
Machinery, Machinery Guide

Rocky Mountain looks for more

As Canada’s largest ag dealership chain turns 10, Country Guide sits down with its senior executives to look at how it got here, and where it’s going

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Reading Time: 6 minutes Suspicion. Unease. Uncertainty. They were all sweeping across the West a decade ago when farmers began seeing their local Case IH and New Holland dealerships get gobbled up by a new and unfamiliar company. Then they started hearing the name — Rocky Mountain Equipment — but that didn’t help. Except as the outsiders buying their […] Read more
The retro Versatile colours are attracting widespread notice, just as the company planned.
Machinery, Machinery Guide

The paint does matter

Versatile draws on inspiration from its past to position itself for future growth

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Reading Time: 5 minutes It isn’t much of a surprise when Versatile shows up for the annual Manitoba Ag Days. The show, after all, is just two hours from the Versatile factory, so the company’s regular attendance is pretty much a given. Local farmers expect to see the brand put in an appearance there every year, and they’re never […] Read more
These combine harvesters are part of the fleet of farm equipment at Jianhu Lantian Agricultural Machinery Co-operative, established in 2007 near Yancheng in Jiangsu Province.
Guide Business, Machinery

China powers up

The world’s most populous country gets serious about farm machinery

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Reading Time: 6 minutes Like so much of China, the country’s agriculture is in a state of transition. While some sectors of the industry are barreling full speed into mechanization, with impressive rates of technology adoption to match the latest in global production standards, the road to modernizing agricultural production isn’t always a smooth one. China is the world’s […] Read more

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