Reading Time: 9 minutes A decade ago, a fresh-faced group of graduates jumped into a grain industry beaten down by prices and Prairie drought, and a livestock industry ravaged by the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) debacle. It was hardly the best of times. By the end of 2004, a year and a half after the BSE crisis began, Canadian […] Read more
The new way into farming
After 10 years on the farm, these top graduates have succeeded by transitioning their family farms from conventional to holistic
A retirement goal of Freedom 52
What’s the right age for Mom and Dad to step back? It might be a lot younger than we have traditionally thought
Reading Time: 9 minutes It is an early fall afternoon, and while their four young children bounce across this picturesque New Brunswick dairy farm, 35-year-old Joas van Oord and his wife Lisa talk about their dreams. In the barn, that same afternoon, the farm’s 58-year-old patriarch, Maarten van Oord shows off the farm’s new robotic milker, and as he […] Read more
I do, and I don’t
Let’s agree. Prenuptial agreements will never be easy to talk about, but knowing the facts can help you get started
Reading Time: 9 minutes At a meeting this winter I sat down with a friendly group of farmers. The conversation turned from the weather to crop prices and slowly shifted into the personal, mostly about children. We shared our farms’ stories, our wins and our defeats. Then the man with tuffs of white hair beside me bent quietly toward […] Read more
The Hansons: A family that farms together…
“It’s good working with you people,” Ed said, “but it will be even better not to see you for the next six months.”
Reading Time: 5 minutes The Hansons’ never-ending harvest finally finished on Friday afternoon. They could barely believe they were really done. They’d spent the last three days racing against the rain in the forecast to get to the north end of the soybean field before it got too wet. “I never thought we’d finish this year,” Jeff told his […] Read more
Taking the first steps in succession planning
Reading Time: 2 minutes Are you getting more and more convinced that it’s time for succession planning for your own farm? If so, here are some thoughts from the experts on how to get started, beginning with the most important question of all: What does our retirement look like? “The retiring couple has to have a focused discussion on […] Read more
Hanson Acres: Who’s behind that wheel?
Nobody better tell Grandpa about this.
Reading Time: 5 minutes Donna had done her best to pass her position on the farm to her daughter-in-law gracefully. First, she’d passed on her role as bookkeeper to Elaine, going so far as to move the filing cabinet from the spot in Donna and Dale’s house where it had permanently crushed the carpet to Elaine and Jeff’s new […] Read more
Turn around
When brothers Ryan and Noel Flitton signed up for business school with their father, it helped their Alberta farm turn a critical corner
Reading Time: 9 minutes The allure of farming runs strong in the Flitton family, so neither Gary Flitton nor his sons Noel or Ryan make any apology for having been drawn for the same reason back to the family’s 12,000 acres of scenic Alberta grain land east of the Rocky Mountains near Vulcan. They want to live a rural […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
