Reading Time: 5 minutes Mark Foster and his sister Melinda Foster-Marshall never thought they’d be farming together. They had different personalities and routes through high school, but they have created roles and responsibilities and processes that are allowing their individual strengths to create a successful farming business. Melinda has a degree in geological sciences from Queen’s University and was […] Read more
The brother and sister advantage: Melinda Foster-Marshall and Mark Foster of Jockbrae Farms
Just because they’re siblings doesn’t mean Melinda and Mark instantly agree on everything. But they have a system for finding common ground, and once they’ve found it, they commit
Young and old
The farm version of the generation gap means that succession talks on many farms stall before they even get a fair chance to start. Here, adviser Delores Moskal shares her ideas for seeing eye to eye
Reading Time: 6 minutes When it comes time to put succession planning on your personal agenda, there are only a couple of ways for it to go, says Delores Moskal. There are the parents who are open to talking succession with the next generation. And then there are parents reluctant to even broach the subject with the kids. So […] Read more
Bounce back, don’t break
What makes some farms so resilient in tough economic times? Finally, this New Zealand research finds some answers
Reading Time: 6 minutes Australia and New Zealand have had their fair share of agricultural challenges. They’ve known fires, tsunamis and cyclones, to name a natural few, and they have suffered from the politics of export markets, not to mention supply-demand crashes in world prices for wool, beef and milk. And that’s without mentioning droughts which, according to Australia’s […] Read more
Young farmers talk about their future
We find out what these university students are thinking as they prepare to head home to the farm. They know their opportunities are great, but their challenges are humbling too
Reading Time: 9 minutes A gaggle in ball caps, T-shirts, jeans and flannel politely stumbled off the bus. They’re third-year students in the University of McGill’s farm management and technology program, and they were on a tour of Ontario farms. They stopped at mine to discuss business structure, succession and the future of agriculture. On closer look and listen, […] Read more
Never too young to talk about farm succession
As the Ellis family is learning, there’s no such thing as too soon for starting the conversation about farm succession
Reading Time: 7 minutes Lincoln Ellis has just got his first taste of combining. “He thought it was pretty interesting for the first 10 minutes, and then he realized how small the combine cab was, and that was about it,” says his dad, Simon Ellis, with a chuckle. “So it was short-lived, but you know, small steps for now. […] Read more
A farm for all
For the Burns family, the goal has always been a farm with a place for the entire family. Now it’s the reality too
Reading Time: 5 minutes John Burns had spent eight years getting a PhD in chemistry and two years working at the Department of National Defence in Kingston, Ont., but his Saskatchewan farm roots began to beckon and he jumped at the chance to get out of the lab and do some off-campus teaching, which led him to the area […] Read more
It’s their job
More farmers like John and Kristi Burns have family and non-family members working side by side, making it vital to set clear job expectations
Reading Time: 8 minutes Job descriptions for new farm employees help them understand how the farm operates, what their job is all about, and what the employer expects of them. But family members working on the farm often think they don’t need one for themselves. They’ve been on the farm forever, after all, so they already know what to […] Read more
It’s two careers
For Gordon and Sonia Decker, the key to success is to make their roles on the farm into rich, rewarding careers
Reading Time: 7 minutes Farming demands great decision making. Solid takes on agronomy, machinery, commodity markets and finance are just the price of admission these days. To thrive, farmers must deploy all that knowledge both for long-term goal-setting and also to make countless moment-by-moment decisions in the field and in the office, often under enormous pressure. They must also […] Read more
Urban agriculture in Germany
Could Munich’s urban farm be a model for Canada, helping improve quality of life in our cities and narrow the urban-rural divide?
Reading Time: 6 minutes If you have never heard of the now-extinct Schlüter tractor brand, what you need to know is that the company produced some famously unique looking machines during its corporate life. Now, this was the first opportunity I’d ever had to see a working Schlüter tractor, and it came in a city — although still on […] Read more
Succession planning: Preparing for takeoff
How one Manitoba family's farm business succession plan is taking flight
Reading Time: 9 minutes Case Study Objective Four children in their late 20s and early 30s, all want to be part of this family farm and aerial spraying business. First Step The Parsonage family transferred ownership before operational management. The parents had used some of their capital gains exemption earlier when buying out of partnership, and about that time […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
