Reading Time: 3 minutes Farmers might not think about retirement often, if ever. But the sooner you start to think about retiring, you can minimize the impact of the adjustment when the time comes. A retirement plan should be part of the conversation when creating a succession plan. The emphasis of succession planning is typically on transferring the business […] Read more
Planning for retirement: Lifestyle versus finances
Planning for 2025 and beyond
Reading Time: 3 minutes Farming is a complex business full of daily decisions with expensive consequences. Country Guide associate editor, April Stewart, sat down with Evan Shout, a.k.a. the Farmer Coach, for his thoughts and top tips on how farmers can prepare to make decisions not only for the coming year but for the next decade. Below is an […] Read more
Five new trends in estate planning
It’s easy to feel like everything is under control. After all, you signed your will years ago. So everything is great, right?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Canada is in the midst of a massive intergenerational transfer of wealth with the owners of trillions of dollars in assets thinking they’ll pass all that wealth on to their children. Despite this historic handoff from one generation to the next, the Investment Planning Counsel reveals that few Canadians have discussed their investment plans with […] Read more
Resilient farmers vs. COVID-19: Producing good outcomes
It takes self-sacrifice, persistence and loyalty to each other, but farm families are creating good outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic, and they’re emerging stronger than ever
Reading Time: 5 minutes As we researched this series on resiliency during the COVID-19 pandemic, did families ever shine! During some of the biggest challenges of our generation, we saw the agriculture community step up, and we saw the theme of family resiliency appear time and again. Our clients were eager to tell us the good, and yes, the […] Read more
Finance metrics you may not have thought of — measuring financial risk
AME Management Part 3: How balance sheets and operating statements help determine your exposure to risk
Reading Time: 3 minutes The first two columns in this three-part series focused on using the operating statement to monitor operating efficiency and to diagnose operating problems. In this column, we turn to the interaction between the balance sheet and operating statement to identify and manage financial risk. This is very topical currently because of concerns that lower grain […] Read more
Life insurance strategies
These five strategies can be serious winners for farm corporations. But be prepared to do some equally serious homework
Reading Time: 5 minutes If everything is tied up in fixed assets when a major change happens, even the best-managed farms can stumble and fall. Debts suddenly become unmanageable, family farms get bogged down in the mud of unachievable succession, and estates get devoured by tax liability. Setting up a rational way to deal with these situations ahead has some […] Read more
Real-time financial management for farmers
Is it good, or too good to be true?
Reading Time: 5 minutes It sounds like a dream come true, placing current financial data at the fingertips of everyone involved in the farming enterprise so you can make better, more efficient on-the-spot decisions at critical crunch times. And it might not be a pipe dream any longer. “It’s just the way the world is working,” says Lance Stockbrugger, […] Read more
Family farm corporations on the rise
Depending on your farm objectives, building a trust into your corporation may be your best first step
Reading Time: 6 minutes The death of the family farm is widely bemoaned. Activists ask, “What do we really know about these corporations that produce our food?” As it turns out, it’s the same question that many farmers are asking themselves, although in a very different context. How can I be sure that my farm corporation is the best […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
