Reading Time: 2 minutes I know I’m a broken record on this subject, and that I’m forever saying that if there’s anything I’d like consumers to really understand about today’s farmers, it’s how they excel at decision making. It’s foreign to consumers, who excel in their own way at making choices, such as which pairs of jeans send which […] Read more
Editor’s Note: A season for deciding on new goals for the farm
Farmers stand out in today’s culture for their ability to make actual decisions, not just choices. Now the rewards for choosing which decisions to make are about to multiply
Editor’s Note: Writing the book on Canada’s farms (2)
Reading Time: 2 minutes Two issues ago, I asked, what would it look like if the business section at Chapters was crammed with books about our farmers? Business books are popular for a reason. It’s easy to mock them, I know, especially the ego strokers that get written so breathlessly by ghost writers who understand there is only one […] Read more
Editor’s Desk: Writing the book on Canada’s farmers
Reading Time: 2 minutes I don’t quite mean what you might think by the headline above. I don’t mean writing the book about farmers FOR farmers. I mean writing it to inspire, encourage and empower other business owners and managers across the country. It’s a thought that comes to me almost every time I sit down to write this […] Read more
Editor’s Desk: Is this the last generation?
Reading Time: 2 minutes The above title caught my eye as I was thumbing through some 2011 back issues of Country Guide. Hmm, I wondered, have the last five years changed what I think about whether young people can successfully take over enough of our family farms to actually comprise a “generation?” Or will they even want to? In […] Read more
Editor’s Desk: Stacking the odds
Reading Time: 2 minutes Increasingly, the science that has the greatest potential to make a difference in agriculture is psychology. In recent years, we have come to appreciate the role of psychology in commodity markets, and in land markets too. We also think we have learned a lot about the psychology of succession planning, and even the psychology of […] Read more
Editor’s Desk: That hard as nails truth
Reading Time: 2 minutes Every neighbourhood has its own stories of farmers who had to be hard as nails to survive, but who turned out to also be fired by a vital spark that could not be extinguished even by the heaviest, most wearying toil. It’s this combination — the toughness and the humanity — that makes them such […] Read more
Editor’s Desk: It wasn’t my best week
Reading Time: 2 minutes I had been invited to speak to some accountants and lawyers who work largely in agricultural practices, and while it was clear we wouldn’t agree on everything, I thought we’d share support for one theme that I’ve been banging away at for as long as I’ve held this position. I showed them a list. I’ll […] Read more
Editor’s Desk: The question of farm growth
Reading Time: 2 minutes It was a question that went all around the table. I was in Illinois with a group of Canadian and American farmers, and the discussion leader kept track of all their answers on a whiteboard. Here’s the question. In the last 30 to 40 years, how much has your family expanded the number of acres […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
