Reading Time: 4 minutes These new peer groups are drawing rave reviews from their members. Are they the most inspirational and perhaps the most essential business idea of the new millennium? It’s a big claim, but it’s tough to argue against this newest iteration of farmers helping farmers. How do you calculate your most productive day? If you’re like […] Read more
The best two days
Peer Think: Kristi Nylen-Burns doesn’t need convincing. “It’s the best decision we’ve ever made for our farm,” she and husband Dustin say of their decision to join a next-gen peer group
Heads above
Peer Think: Arguably, it has never been harder to climb the ladder to farming success, which may be the best argument yet for peer groups
Reading Time: 4 minutes These new peer groups are drawing rave reviews from their members. Are they the most inspirational and perhaps the most essential business idea of the new millennium? It’s a big claim, but it’s tough to argue against this newest iteration of farmers helping farmers. Though farmer peer groups aren’t yet very common, they are a […] Read more
Raising your farm’s importance
Making your farm more valuable to your suppliers can move you a big step up the success ladder
Reading Time: 5 minutes In some ways, of course, farming is unique. In other ways, though, it’s got the same concerns as every other business, because like other business owners, farmers must deal with various other businesses all through the year. What can farmers do to improve those business relationships, or at the very least to prevent hiccups in […] Read more
A shareholder plan for farm employees
With family and non-family ownership, Marie-Claude Mainville’s management of this Quebec farm may become a new Canadian pattern
Reading Time: 7 minutes Back in 1979, friends Jan Van Gennip and Orance Mainville decided to join forces to get into the feedlot business. Van Gennip had the farm, Mainville brought his knowledge of cattle and business, and together they formed Fermes Janor. Since then, Mainville (now semi-retired) has been joined by his daughter Marie-Claude, and many partners have […] Read more
Editor’s Note: 2018 – Is this the ‘year of destiny?’
As we head toward spring, there’s a growing ambitiousness among many Canadian farmers, and an edge to their certainty that it is crucial to make progress before the year is out
Reading Time: 2 minutes I’m an optimist. Are you? Let’s find out. Overall, our farm sector is healthier than it has been at any time in my memory. Nor do I see any precipices in our immediate future. There can always be bad news. But really, who actually thinks that interest rates are going to jump into double digits […] Read more
Let your kids see how you mind your farm’s business
Here’s where the farm succession process really starts
Reading Time: 5 minutes If you’re close to retirement, you may be getting ready to succeed the farm to your children. Or, if you’re younger, you’ll be thinking about what is going to happen to the farm when it’s your turn to retire. In either scenario, your family, your children and the business itself will likely be intermingling, which […] Read more
Editor’s Note: ‘Skills revolution’ picks up pace
More than ever, the core asset on any farm is the decision maker in the middle, and how they harness the incredible array of technologies and talents around them into a cohesive whole
Reading Time: 2 minutes We’ve all grown up with the idea that agriculture progresses by step changes, and that these step changes are identified by the technologies that have driven them. Think of the breakthroughs in farm machinery and how they have made it possible to harvest more acres of higher-quality crops per person than could ever have been […] Read more
Two minds
More couples like the De Groots are taking advanced farm business training together, and report that it’s good both for the farm and for their marriage
Reading Time: 6 minutes To say that Marty and Krista De Groot have their hands full is an understatement. The young couple are in the midst of taking over the third-generation family farm from Marty’s parents. Although his dad, Jack, still helps out, Marty does the bulk of the daily work, taking care of the 40,000 broiler chickens, 2,500 […] Read more
Success story
A new survey shows our farmers actually are finding ways to transition their farms to the next generation
Reading Time: 6 minutes There’s encouraging news from a fresh survey of multi-generational farms in Canada and the U.S. Amid all the debate that the 2016 ag census has generated about whether farmers are actually getting serious about Canada’s huge farm succession challenge, this survey shows that many farms are getting on with the job just fine, thanks. No […] Read more
Leadership on the farm — empowerment
Part two in a five-part series on successful farm leadership
Reading Time: 4 minutes Leadership surrounds me in my daily work with farm families across Ontario. One thing our succession conversations always circle back to is leadership, both in theory and in practice (and as we all know, the practice part is the difficult part.) We are still learning to wrap our heads around what collaborative leadership looks like […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
