Reading Time: 7 minutes We’ve all seen them, even in this magazine. They’re all the headlines about the wonderful world of value-add. How many headlines have you read? A dozen? More? They seem to be everywhere, offering glowing accounts of outside-the-box thinking and entrepreneurial success. Often, though, the concept leaves a big question in the air. Is value-add only […] Read more
Summer Series: Farm opportunities
[Make it Count] Steve Larocque builds a case for value-add at every farm size
Summer Series: Implementing change on farms that works
[Make it Count] Like it or not, one day your farm will have to change to succeed. But what makes a farm good at change?
Reading Time: 8 minutes Norm Dreger has seen a lot of farms and agribusinesses change. Like a lot of Country Guide readers, he’s seen it from the family farm, but he also saw it in his earlier role as head of business development at Syngenta and he sees it now in his current job as principal at Osborne Interim […] Read more
Summer Series: Working through change
[Make it count] Learning to change — and to change better — is a constant process
Reading Time: 5 minutes Canadian farmers are no strangers to change. Over the centuries, and especially over the last few decades, they have constantly adapted to changing global markets and government policies with new processes, technology and on-farm practices. Despite change being such a big part of farming, however, few farmers receive formal lessons in best practices for change […] Read more
Summer Series: The right farm team
[Land] It’s the Catch-22 of the decade. Either buy that ultra-expensive land or someone else will. How do you make that decision?
Reading Time: 8 minutes Two years ago in June, Terry Aberhart got a call from an account manager at the land investment company that, at the time, was leasing him about 2,000 acres of his roughly 15,000-acre operation. “Hey, we’ve been having some unsolicited offers come in,” the voice on the line said. The account manager went on: “In […] Read more
Summer Series: “Not just with acres”
[Land] “We had to find another way to diversify,” says Jennifer Lindgren
Reading Time: 10 minutes The question we’ve come to ask is why Jordan and Jennifer Lindgren made the strange choice to turn being a grain farmer into such a public life. Unlike most farmers, the Lindgrens’ marketing campaign puts their farm and their family right in the public spotlight. Can it possibly pay? And what’s it like behind the […] Read more
Summer Series: Your next decision
[Change Management] Can you take the same path as Kristjan Hebert? Should you even try?
Reading Time: 9 minutes Agriculture already has so many buzz phrases meant to show you’re smart. There’s “Do more with less,” there’s “Work on the business, not in it,” and, of course, there’s “What got you here today won’t get you to where you want to go tomorrow.” It isn’t that they’re wrong. It’s that they’re too much like […] Read more
Summer Series: What are they thinking?
[Change Management] Like the Munn-Venns, those new small-acreage farmers down your road may have a surprisingly sophisticated approach to decision-making
Reading Time: 11 minutes This isn’t a typical Country Guide scenario. Three years ago, Karri and Trefor Munn-Venn saw a 25-acre vineyard in Quebec’s picturesque Outaouais region and they bought it lock, stock and barrel — despite having zero farming experience. For established farmers, it could look as if the Munn-Venns had turned their backs on sensible decision-making the […] Read more
Summer Series: Preparing a business plan for your farm
[Change Management] Whether the change you’re looking at is big or small, the experts insist a business plan will make it more successful
Reading Time: 5 minutes A business plan is like a road map for your farm. You can plan your route, set a destination and track progress. But without a map or a plan, how does a farm business owner know what success looks like? Or what you’re capable of achieving? And, most importantly, how do you decide which changes […] Read more
Summer Series: Long-distance farming
[Change Management] For Michael Carter, when a family can make the right changes at home, their odds of success with expanding across provincial borders and hundreds of kms away go up and up
Reading Time: 9 minutes The idea sounds right for the times. If you can’t expand at home, either because land is so expensive or because there just isn’t any for sale, look further afield. Maybe two hours away, maybe four, maybe even in a different province and so far away you basically have to set up a whole new […] Read more
Summer Series: Manitoba couple reinvents their farm
[Change Management] What does it take to survive when you run into a production problem so serious it threatens your whole farm? The Hoffords were about to find out
Reading Time: 11 minutes At first, going organic seemed the perfect choice for Ryan and Amy Hofford, a young couple intent on taking over the family farm after the early passing of Ryan’s father. Organic had everything going for it. The young couple could cash-flow its low-input approach, they’d excel at its hands-on marketing and they’d be on a […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
