Reading Time: < 1 minute It’s no secret that technology companies have placing agriculture-related bets in recent years, but their total investment in startups is down from its 2015 peak. Has Silicon Valley cooled on agriculture or will it keep pushing at what some describe as tech’s “last frontier?” On this week’s episode of Glacier FarmMedia’s new podcast Between the […] Read more
Between the Rows: Tech, teaching and tonnage
Farm management groups have benefits
This farm finds that belonging to a farm management group improves their decision-making, and reduces their stress
Reading Time: 5 minutes Alain Lavigne has belonged to a farm management group for 25 years and says he couldn’t imagine farming without it. “It puts the picture of the whole farm in front of you… it helps us evaluate our strengths and weaknesses,” says Lavigne, who farms with his family in Ontario, an hour east of Ottawa. “It […] Read more
The roads of Zambia
We’ve always known the country’s agriculture potential is massive. Now there are signs it is being opened up
Reading Time: 10 minutes Associate editor Maggie Van Camp travelled to Zambia through an International Federation of Agricultural Journalists investigation into the country’s challenges and opportunities. One farm was ultra-modern and 74,000 acres, she reports. Others struggle with basic subsistence. The future may need both. Driving to Nsongwe, Zambia from tourist-rich Livingstone is a tooth-rattling, 30-minute adventure through a […] Read more
The business of owning farmland
Farmers are land investors too, but are we any good at it?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Of course, farmers integrate their real estate into their production business, with land and buildings used for the growing of crops and production of livestock. Importantly, too, the asset value is used as collateral to secure financing. As well, farm real estate is often the main retirement fund. There is no question, too, that farmland […] Read more
Ottawa’s gamble
A year after pulling the plug on the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly, Ottawa is funding a new generation of Ukrainian co-ops
Reading Time: 6 minutes When Camil Côté landed in Ukraine’s capital Kiev last July, he was on a mission to establish grain co-operatives in a country that used to be the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. But if there was any irony in a Canadian going to the heartland of communism to build new co-ops, it wasn’t on anyone’s […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
