When you think about your current situation, what’s the ideal outcome or end game?

When farm plans fail

If you’ve been talking for years about planning something for the farm, maybe it’s time to look at why you’re stuck

Reading Time: 3 minutes “It’s been 10 years, and we still don’t have a plan.” If this sounds like something you’ve said to yourself, have you also asked, “Why don’t we?” Ten years talking about making a plan but still not having it written down, or not making any real changes in the way your farm operates, can be […] Read more


Although Lesley Kelly is farming full-time, she remains focused on her goals and active in several of her other ventures.

Saskatchewan farmers adapt to professional and personal transitions

From retirement to adapting operations, today’s farmers are making transitions like never before. Here’s how two farmers used them to grow

Reading Time: 4 minutes The agriculture industry is grappling with change, perhaps more than ever before. Which is why it’s also more important than ever for farmers to understand how to navigate transitions, both professional and personal, successfully. Lesley Kelly has seen a lot of change throughout her career and she’s grateful for that — despite the fact that […] Read more

Lydia Carpenter, Wian Prinsloo with son Alastair

An evolving vision

First-gen farmers share their blueprint for business transition

Reading Time: 5 minutes When it comes to starting and growing a business, you’re only limited by your imagination. For Belmont, Manitoba first-generation farmers Lydia Carpenter and her husband Wian Prinsloo, it’s that type of unlimited, outside-the-box thinking that has become their regular way of thinking. Over the years, they’ve leveraged multiple income streams, a direct-to-consumer marketing beef business, […] Read more


man and child in a farm field

Building a farm succession plan for the whole family

Today there’s more opportunity than ever to write or tweak a succession plan to drive the success of your entire family. But there’s still a lot of opportunity for it to go off the rails too

Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s been like a strain of Covid that attacks the farm business. It even started about the same time as the bug, ramping up in late 2020 when farmland values really began heating up. In fact, when you looked at the FCC graphs showing the spikes in land prices across Canada over the following months, […] Read more

One transition advisor says, ‘unspoken expectations are the silent killers of family farms.’

How the farm succession landscape is changing

Eighty per cent of Annessa Good-Hassard’s clients come to her today wanting to gift or leave their farmland to non-farming children. And that may not be the biggest change in the new succession planning

Reading Time: 6 minutes It’s no secret. Succession planning involves bringing in the experts. But that’s nothing new. Farm families have been calling in lawyers, accountants and business advisors to help with their transition planning for decades. But don’t try saying there’s nothing new about those advisors today. Or about what they’re bringing to more and more farms. It […] Read more


“Ask your family for feedback on how you can evolve your performance and go from good to great,” Junkin tells young hopefuls. “Then, with humility, make one change a month.”

Summer Series: Coming home to farm

[Make It Count] Don’t expect the keys to be waiting, warns Andy Caygeon Junkin. Instead, carve out a path to self-improvement

Reading Time: 6 minutes Let’s imagine you have just come back to the family farm. You have completed your diploma or degree, your head is full of ideas, your energy is overflowing, and you are absolutely itching to sit down and have a conversation with Mom and Dad about when and how you are going to take over the […] Read more

Shane Conway, researcher in the Rural Studies Centre at the University of Galway.

Summer Series: You forgot who?

[Change Management] When Mom and Dad feel they’re being pushed out of the way, all sorts of bad things happen

Reading Time: 5 minutes The Irish government thought it was such a great idea. The year was 2007, and in Ireland, as in the Canada of that time, few farms were setting up formal transition or succession plans. The Irish government had also begun asking itself what would happen when age or ill health finally pushes all those farmers […] Read more


“Keeping each other accountable is very important.” — Gracey Gulak.

Summer Series: When she’ll be the leader…

[Leadership] On more farms like these, the dad-daughter relationship is emerging as one of agriculture’s greatest strengths

Reading Time: 10 minutes The dad-daughter relationship is emerging as one of agriculture’s greatest strengths. Country Guide spoke with two young Manitoban women about how they’re harnessing the power of this dynamic to grow their farms.– April Stewart, CG Associate Editor Maybe it used to be a struggle for Dad to stop being Dad and become a business partner. […] Read more

Farmer and His Son Standing Side by Side Leaning on a Gate

Summer Series: How do you know when the younger generation is ‘ready’?

[Leadership] AME Management: How succession can be successfully planned

Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s a tough question for any family business to ask and answer. How do you know when the next generation is equipped to take over management decisions and lead the business into its next chapter? This article offers some tips.– April Stewart, CG Associate Editor A tough question for any family business is how to […] Read more