Reading Time: 2 minutes Glacier FarmMedia – It’s the time of year that farmland often changes hands. This spring, there is an increase of sales in certain sectors, driven by land stress and owners’ inability to weather another financial or literal storm. Many of these properties are monocultures or singularly focused production units and highly dependent on one source of […] Read more

Summer Series: Diversity model may buffer risk of farmland buys
[Land] Should farmers consider ecological diversity as a risk management tool?

Prairie forecast: Weak systems make for tricky forecast
Forecast issued Aug. 14, covering Aug. 14 to 21, 2024
Reading Time: 3 minutes The slack or weak pattern looks to continue into much of next week, which makes it difficult to pinpoint which areas could see showers or thunderstorms, and on which days. Best chances for precipitation look to be over the eastern Prairies. This type of pattern also makes it difficult to predict where forest fire smoke will be.

VIDEO: Summer Series: Meet the Lindgrens, Pt. 2
Reading Time: < 1 minute In part one of our three-part series featuring the Lindgrens, you heard how this farm family found other ways to diversify their Saskatchewan farm as farmland prices spiked. Hear more from the Lindgrens and their farm operation in part two of our three-part video series.

VIDEO: Summer Series: Meet the Lindgrens, Pt. 1
Reading Time: < 1 minute In a feature article earlier late last year, Country Guide asked why Jordan and Jennifer Lindgren made the choice of making their life as grain farmers so public. The Saskatchewan farmers and past Outstanding Young Farmer winners are aware this approach likely goes against the grain of what most farmers would choose to do, but […] Read more

Summer Series: Podcast with Norm Lamothe
Reading Time: < 1 minute Norm Lamothe of Woodleigh Farms Ltd. is a multi-generational (6th generation) family-run business. Norm and his family are committed to ensuring that all the environmental impacts are considered when making decisions in their operations and following organic and sustainable practices. In recent years they have shifted away from traditional methods of agriculture to what we […] Read more

Prairie forecast: Temperatures to warm up
Forecast issued Aug. 7, covering Aug. 7 to 14, 2024
Reading Time: 3 minutes For this forecast period, it's looking like the forecasted strong area of high pressure is going to dominate the weather across the Prairies. This should bring plenty of sunshine and warming temperatures. Overnight lows look to be seasonable, so at this point it doesn't look like we'll see heat warnings—but as usual you just never know.

Summer Series: Where will land prices be in 10 years?
[Land] Insider predictions on what to expect from land prices in the next decade
Reading Time: 5 minutes There is just one word to describe the value of farmland in Canada: high. Or maybe that should be HIGH. Cultivated farmland across Canada jumped an average 12.8 percent last year, says Farm Credit Canada. It’s the biggest jump since 2014 and part of an upward trend that has seen land values post continuous gains […] Read more

Agriculture community invited to ‘talk it out’ about mental health via free online platform
Reading Time: < 1 minute AgTalk is an anonymous, free online platform in which people can discuss mental health and find support from their peers. It’s moderated by mental health professionals.

Farm writer and political fundraiser Mark Kihn passes
Reading Time: 2 minutes After a long struggle with cancer, Mark Kihn, the former owner and publisher of the Charolais Banner, has died. Outside the beef industry, Kihn is likely best known for his work fundraising for Stephen Harper, rustling up over $3.5 million for Harper’s two leadership campaigns.

Prairie forecast: Cooler weather coming, but little precipitation
Forecast issued July 31, covering July 31 to August 7, 2024
Reading Time: 3 minutes It's looking like we'll soon see an end to the hot conditions of the last few weeks as upper ridging collapses and the upper flow across the Prairies moves to a straight west-to-east flow. Under this pattern, we should see textbook summer conditions. The only downside is there aren't many chances of precipitation.