Reading Time: < 1 minute Canada’s federal farm lender says it will be flexible with qualifying Prairie crop growers facing financial trouble from a rain-soaked harvest season. Areas of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have experienced “significant levels of rain in the last half of the growing season and snow since the beginning of October,” Farm Credit Canada said in a […] Read more
FCC offers to bend terms for soaked Prairie growers
Farmers’ debt seen hitting fresh record high
Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — Canadian farmers’ debt will likely reach another record high this year, while land appreciation slows and incomes flatten, but the industry is still in strong financial shape, the country’s biggest agriculture lender, Farm Credit Canada, forecast on Tuesday. FCC, the federal Crown ag lending agency, sounded a note of caution for farmers, who […] Read more
Manitoba, Canadian farmland values up again in 2015
Farm Credit Canada says the annual percentage increase in farmland values is getting smaller
Reading Time: 4 minutes Manitoba farmland values led the way with the highest average percentage increase in Canada last year, says Farm Credit Canada (FCC). But the pace of increases the last few years here and across Canada is slowing in step with the plateauing of farm cash receipts, and slower drop in interest rates, J.P. Gervais, FCC’s chief […] Read more
Farmland fundamentals potentially bearish: FCC
Reading Time: 3 minutes Having tracked more double-digit percentage increases in Canadian farmland prices through 2015, Canada’s federal farm lender sees factors lining up for those values to retreat. Farm Credit Canada’s latest Farmland Values Report, released Monday, logged a 10.1 per cent increase in average farmland values in Canada in 2015, down from a 14.3 per cent rise in […] Read more
Our farmland for sale
The West is clamping down on foreign ownership of farmland, and even in Ontario, where there are few controls, overseas purchases are much lower than the rumour mill says
Reading Time: 5 minutes Almost every rural coffee shop has its own version of the same story. Foreigners are buying up Canadian farmland and they’re making land prices soar beyond the reach of local farmers as a result. But is it true? Maybe. But not likely. In fact, according to the people with their fingers on the pulse, such […] Read more
Farming in a troubled economy
It looks like a weak dollar isn’t so good for agriculture after all
Reading Time: 5 minutes Farmers almost universally accept the premise that a drop in the Canadian dollar is bullish for our agriculture because our commodities are priced off the U.S. This increases our prices domestically and also makes us more competitive both in the U.S. and in regions where commodity transactions are made in American dollars. But is this […] Read more
How agricultural marketers are using your data
You farm better by studying the stacks of data you collect about your crops. Ag suppliers sell better by studying the stacks of data they collect about YOU
Reading Time: 7 minutes Using customer knowledge to outperform the competition has been a critical survival strategy for small-town businesses as they struggle to fend off competition from mega-retailers. Now, those mega-retailers are showing they can get to know their customers too. They can even get to know them better than the small shops. Don’t believe it? Then just […] Read more
FCC to offer breaks on loans in Sask., Alta.
Reading Time: < 1 minute Customers of Farm Credit Canada in parched areas of Alberta and Saskatchewan may be able to get breaks on their outstanding loan payments. FCC on Monday announced it would work with affected customers on “solutions for their operation(s)” such as deferral of principal payments and/or otherwise amending their loan payment schedules. The offer applies to […] Read more
Six numbers in agriculture to make you stop and think
It isn’t as quiet as you might think on the home front. Yes, today’s farms seem stable, but the next evolutionary wave is gaining energy
Reading Time: 6 minutes The spring rush is over, so now is the time to take a moment and reflect. As you gaze across fields flush with new growth, think about how much things have evolved in the last few years. Although that lone tree out there still leans to the east, and the sun still sets in the […] Read more
Has the price of farmland flatlined?
It may seem like the life has gone out of land markets, but don’t call the morgue just yet
Reading Time: 6 minutes If you get most farmers and landowners to talk about it candidly, most will admit to being a bit awestruck by just how far and how fast land prices have risen. Simon Ellis, a young fourth-generation farmer from near Wawanesa, Man., says he and his neighbours have watched over the past decade as land prices […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
