Tom Button

Editor’s Note: How good is the advice I’m getting?

Reading Time: 2 minutes It’s a question we didn’t ask farm accountants when we asked them what traits separate their average from their above-average farm clients. The days of bookkeepers and cash accounting aren’t over, of course. Every farm has different needs. But accountants and accrual-based accounting are the new norm, and the transition has helped enable the professionalization […] Read more

Tom Button

Editor’s Note: Into 2021 with a change of plan

Reading Time: 2 minutes In the century-plus that Country Guide has been publishing, there have been few times with as much change in the air for Canada’s farms as there is heading into this January. If this were any other industry, it would be the stuff of headlines. It isn’t just that change is afoot on Canada’s farms, it’s […] Read more


Tom Button

Editor’s Note: Get in with the right questions

If you want to know who is going to be farming five years from now, then taking a look at who is in the aisles at Ag in Motion and at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show is a good place to start

Reading Time: 2 minutes Business schools teach a useful rule. Whether you’re CEO of Ford or if you run a Mom and Pop restaurant, they say, you should spend 80 per cent of your time working on the nuts and bolts of how you make the right quality product at the right price. That seems about right for the […] Read more

Tom Button

Editor’s Note: The other side of the success story

At Country Guide, we do get criticized for seeming to print only stories about successes, not failures, but we don’t get as much flak as you might think… and we all know the reason why

Reading Time: 2 minutes You can see it again in the lineup of stories we bring you in our March 1 issue of Country Guide. For the next generation of Canada’s farmers, “average” won’t cut it. Our future farmers must run farms that score an A if not an A+ in every category… or they will face tall odds against […] Read more


Tom Button

Editor’s Note: Deciding you want a better future

Reading Time: 2 minutes Farming is evolving faster than any of us realize, with farmers solidly in charge. To see how, just read the stories our latest issue and apply their messages to an entire industry. A few weeks ago, our broader Country Guide team hired a bus and invited the agency people who make the ads, write the […] Read more

Tom Button

Editor’s Note: ‘Big’ plans for summer in the city

Swift Current is still a fine place. Brandon is too, and so are London, Kingston, Lethbridge and Prince Albert, along with an atlas full of other small cities across Canada. But…

Reading Time: 2 minutes … they just don’t come up to the mark, at least in this one important way. Even Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Edmonton fall short, partly because you feel too comfortable in them. Nor does even Calgary make the list, although that’s OK because Ottawa doesn’t get on it either. Canadians have built three of the world’s […] Read more