Reading Time: 2 minutes Success at business is success at putting your values into action. In farming, that’s good for the world, and it’s going to continue that way as long as family farming survives. One of my personal distractions this spring will be planting sugar maples and white oaks that we’re acquiring with the help of the local […] Read more
Editor’s Note: Knowing the value of the job ahead
Editor’s Note: A bigger question than COVID-19
Reading Time: 2 minutes Agriculture is racing into the future. We all agree on that. But what will farms look like in that future? And who will farm them? I can’t say for sure, and I don’t think you can either. Here’s an interesting assignment for a snowy March evening. Make a list of your current machinery inventory and […] Read more
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
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
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
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
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
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
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
