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
China powers up
The world’s most populous country gets serious about farm machinery
Shortline prospecting
Shortline railway companies are creating new opportunities for farm commodities, and for farmers too
Reading Time: 7 minutes Operating a shortline railway in Western Canada isn’t an easy proposition. Over the past 20 years, many companies have come, and ultimately gone, after trying to revive lines that CN and CP had abandoned in their waves of rationalization. But now, a move from single-farm producer car loading to higher-volume sites might become the key […] Read more
Trumping it out
Will a protectionist administration in the White House force our ag equipment industry to move south?
Reading Time: 6 minutes It was a stunning move. Ford’s CEO and president Mark Fields appeared on CNN in January to announce that his company was scrubbing its long-planned construction of a US$1.6 billion assembly plant in Mexico. Instead, Ford will invest U.S.$700 million in a Michigan facility and boost its workforce in that state by 700. It looked […] Read more
Krone wants you to buy
Is this the right time for offshore brands to make a play for a bigger chunk of the North American equipment market? Is it even possible for them to get onto your farm?
Reading Time: 5 minutes As he stood in front of a group of more than 100 farm journalists from a wide range of countries, Bernard Krone, president of Krone, a family-owned forage equipment brand based in Germany, wanted us to know why his company had partnered with Lemken, another German manufacturer, to hold an international media event in northern […] Read more
Follow the five per cent rule
Incremental changes can have a big impact on your operation
Reading Time: 4 minutes You may have heard the saying, “Take care of the small things and the big things take care of themselves.” This is a great piece of advice for life in general, and it also very much applies in the context of running a farm business, where even small changes can have a big impact on […] Read more
Building a capital plan
The 10-year capital acquisition plan they’ve created for their farm gives the Semeniuks a decision-making boost, plus more resilience
Reading Time: 8 minutes In early October, Robert and Angela Semeniuk woke to deep snow blanketing their picturesque farm at Smoky Lake, north of Edmonton. Their hearts sank. Silence had descended on a scene that was supposed to be humming with harvest, leaving more than half of their canola in the field. But on that cold, grey fall morning, […] Read more
Wheat breeding: Public or private?
Some argue private investment will boost yields, but others note that public breeders have done a pretty good job so far
Reading Time: 4 minutes Making wheat a more competitive crop requires public and private breeder co-operation — and getting a return on investment from farmers buying seed. That was the consensus among panelists discussing wheat breeding at the 3rd Canadian Wheat Symposium in November. “My observation would be that ultimately farmers are going to be paying for this one […] Read more
Custom business
Custom operators like Troy Monea are under pressure to boost customer service and to intensify their business management. In this game, there’s less and less room for the uncommitted
Reading Time: 10 minutes The same stories get told over and over again. For instance, when Troy Monea was growing his busy custom farm business near Falun, Alta., he reached out to a potential competitor. “They had got so big so fast, I didn’t know how I could compete,” Monea recalls. “I couldn’t offer what he was offering, so […] Read more
Create your foreign exchange strategy
Can you afford to be exposed to the risks of volatile currency markets?
Reading Time: 3 minutes When it comes to managing risk to their operations, farmers are well versed in the usual suspects — whether that’s risks in the field like adverse weather, disease and equipment failure, or whether it’s spiking interest rates, lack of adequate cash flow, or being over-leveraged. But one often overlooked risk is when dealing with foreign […] Read more
Can you count on AgriStability?
A lot depends on the kind of operation you’re running, and whether you use family labour
Reading Time: 5 minutes Sue and Jim started farming by buying 300 acres, with buildings. By renting additional land, they quickly expanded to 2,500 acres. They supported this expansion with machinery that was mainly leased, and hired custom harvesting. They relied on a bank line of credit for much of their operating money. The last five years were good, […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
