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Tag Archives Business/Finance

Guide Business, Management

Use financial ratios to diagnose operational issues

AME Management: Different farms have different factors affecting their performance

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Reading Time: 3 minutes The profit and loss statement provides three financial ratios that can help identify operational issues and set priorities in your operations plan. The ratios and their benchmarks are: The first and third columns define revenue/earnings and cost categories deducted from them on a standardized operating statement. The second and fourth are the resulting operating and […] Read more
Guide Business

Is your idea marketable?

The BioEnterprise model could help you get your project off the ground

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Reading Time: 4 minutes Farmers are known for being natural innovators, and for finding ways of doing things faster, better or easier. What farmer hasn’t thought at least once: “This is a great idea — I bet I could sell it.” But the reality is that there is a long and difficult road between “the great idea” and a […] Read more
Guide Business

Is a family trust right for you?

A trust might be an efficient tool for protecting your farm business or for managing family issues at succession, but they aren’t for everyone

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Reading Time: 5 minutes Family trusts are commonly used as a convenient way to own shares in a company and as a succession tool for commercial businesses, but they can also be incorporated into a family farm structure…depending on the circumstances. “A farm corporation may have at its disposal favourable tax rules that may allow it to achieve the […] Read more
man holding wheat in hand
Crops, Guide Business

What if the party’s over?

Maybe these strategies will keep more of us from repeating the tragic ’80s

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Reading Time: 9 minutes What is a grain farmer to do? Encouraged by both record-high crop prices and production over the past few years, you bought more land and upgraded your combine. With record-low interest rates, these were shrewd business decisions that pencilled out. They made sense, right? Except now crop prices are flat, and those responsible for input […] Read more
The Airseed Hoppers may be a great idea, but what makes it a great business are business skills and energy, says Kevin Lisafeld (r), who is now passing those skills on to son Brad as well as to long-term employee Cory Lischka (l).
Crops, Management

Forty years of farming requires a spirit for change

It turns out that successful diversification depends on the mindset you bring to it

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Reading Time: 5 minutes When Kevin Lisafeld was still a teenager, his mother, Evelyn, told him not to put all his eggs in one basket. That advice has served him well during a 40-year career as a farmer and businessman. But success doesn’t come from diversifying for the sake of diversification. Lisafeld has learned how to spot an opportunity, […] Read more
"Demand is everything right now, and it’s not strong. I really think that 2016 is shaping up to be a battleground year. That’s going to keep commodities of all types, including grains, under a lot of price pressure." – Errol Anderson
Guide Business, Markets

2016 could be a ‘battleground year’ for commodity prices

A ‘battleground year’ is how analyst Errol Anderson sees 2016. Prices will be profitable… sometimes…but success will only come to producers who rein in their emotions

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Reading Time: 8 minutes It isn’t only agriculture. China has become the world’s largest market for an incredibly long list of commodities. Consider the manufacturing industry, for example, where the Chinese generate roughly half of global demand — they use 54 per cent of global aluminum production, 50 per cent of nickel, 48 per cent of copper and 46 […] Read more
"The actions of the Chinese government could set the stage for the threat of a trade war. We’re already in the midst of a global currency war, though central bankers certainly don’t want to say those words." – Errol Anderson.
Guide Business

Hold on tight. The global economy is a mess

Not even Errol Anderson knows where the pieces will all fall. What’s a farmer to do?

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Reading Time: 8 minutes Buckle up. Commodity markets look to be in for a wild ride. China is experiencing its first major setback since its market liberalization began. It generated 40 per cent of global economic growth last year, so this is troubling. If its engine is faltering, everyone is going to feel it. Market analyst Errol Anderson tells […] Read more
A hand full of Canadian money
Guide Business

The critical role of cost control on the farm

Guide Thrive 2015: Upgrading your planning, tracking and benchmarking processes isn’t always easy, but it can put you in charge of your farm’s future

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Reading Time: 5 minutes Forget good luck. As a strategy, it obviously has its weaknesses. Worse, it takes your eye off the factor that really makes a difference — how good you are at tracking and managing your costs. If there’s any luck involved in that, says Drew Fowler of Eyebrow, Sask., it’s a word that never comes to […] Read more
man wearing baseball cap
Guide Business, Management

Real-time financial management for farmers

Is it good, or too good to be true?

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Reading Time: 5 minutes It sounds like a dream come true, placing current financial data at the fingertips of everyone involved in the farming enterprise so you can make better, more efficient on-the-spot decisions at critical crunch times. And it might not be a pipe dream any longer. “It’s just the way the world is working,” says Lance Stockbrugger, […] Read more

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