Reading Time: 6 minutes Farm partnerships are taking a new direction today. Of course there are still traditional arrangements — formal or informal — between farmers, like those that share the cost of equipment, and there are contractual arrangements, too, like those between a crop processor and a farmer delivering specific specs. More and more, though, farmers are partnering […] Read more
‘Partner up’ to help diversify your farm
Rosemary Wotske and Cam Beard need new rules. Do you?
How selling local works for these farmers
For smaller farms, local can seem the only option. Now, a decade of real world experience from farmers like Troy Stozek and Michelle Schram points to a better way to do it
Reading Time: 6 minutes When it comes to getting locally grown food to consumers, farmers can only do so much. For regional food systems to thrive there needs to be more collaboration among farmers and from many other people along the chain. Troy Strozek and Michelle Schram, owners and operaters of Fresh Roots Farm at Cartwright, just north of […] Read more
Do’s and don’ts of farm direct marketing
Reading Time: 7 minutes The reality for many small farmers is that direct marketing what they raise and grow on their farms is the only way they can see to achieve the margins they need to support themselves and their dreams. “For entry farmers or those who are smaller, they don’t have the economy of scale to rely on […] Read more
Taking a direct mindset to farm marketing
Three winners at Outstanding Young Farmers share the insights that turned their ideas into successful businesses
Reading Time: 6 minutes More Canadian farmers are selling more of what they produce directly to consumers than ever before. Customers are keen to shop for locally made products and many are looking for agritourism experiences. While direct farm marketing has grown in popularity in recent times, it isn’t new to everybody. Some farmers have years of experience in […] Read more
Talking up the farm story
It’s called brand theory and it’s the cornerstone of marketing for businesses around the world. Now it turns out it works on the farm too
Reading Time: 8 minutes A brand isn’t a Nike swoosh. It’s what the Nike swoosh makes you think. On the farm, it isn’t a yellow deer jumping across a green background. It’s all the ideas — the thoughts, feelings and expectations — that that deer calls up. Few jobs are more studded with brands than farming. Farmers fill their […] Read more
Direct farm marketing in your pocket
Direct-to-consumer sales are climbing across Canada, but the small farms at the bottom of the market face some challenges
Reading Time: 5 minutes We picture them on the sides of roads and highways. We might think of a fruit stand, for example, or maybe we remember a hand-painted sign pointing to a U-pick farm. They’re what we think of when someone says “direct marketing” because they’re the more time-tested ways farmers have bypassed middlemen and retailers to sell […] Read more
Direct farm marketers shift gears during pandemic lockdown phase
Direct-to-consumer farm marketers learn to manage businesses that have grown much quicker than they expected
Reading Time: 6 minutes Glacier FarmMedia – Nestled in the colourfully chaotic flower garden encompassing Sideroad Farm, Amy Kitchen’s sun-browned face flits between appreciation and concern. Sixteen months past the initial pandemic lockdown in March 2020, Kitchen is in the enviable position of having her Grey County organic on-farm business rocket past its five-year growth plan. “There’s a lot […] Read more
Building the chain
When should you give an expert chain-builder like Braden Douglas a call?
Reading Time: 7 minutes Farmers are expert at producing food. No one doubts that. Increasingly, farmers are also expert at finances and myriad other sorts of business management. Again, that’s beyond debate. But are you expert at launching startups too? It’s one of the big questions of 2020, when so many of the ideas that are bubbling up across […] Read more
Owning the supply chain
B.C.’s third-largest hog producers Charlotte and Bob Lepp thought they’d test the waters with a small step into retail. It’s led to incredible learning, and growth
Reading Time: 8 minutes It isn’t exactly unusual. Time and again, all across the country, and especially now with COVID-19, farmers have looked at what they produce and thought, “If only I could cut some distributors and wholesalers out of the chain, I’d get to keep a lot more of what the end-user actually pays for the food I […] Read more
Strategically grass-fed
In the heart of Alberta feedlot country, this farm secures its future in value-add
Reading Time: 8 minutes The story of Trail’s End Beef reads like the script for a reality television show. First, there’s a female protagonist — city-raised, private-school educated, a show jumper with an MA in history, a book author. She’s tall, lanky, blonde, engaging, a go-getter. Vegetarian. Then, there’s the male lead, also tall, also lanky. Raised on a […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
