Reading Time: 4 minutes Can leadership skills impact your farm’s bottom line? Find out how this business x-factor can be developed to give your farm a competitive advantage.– April Stewart, CG Associate Editor Leadership is the overlooked skill set that can explain why some farms move forward and grow, overcoming difficult periods to successfully transition from one generation to […] Read more
Summer Series: The difference maker: on-farm leadership
On-farm leadership is the X-factor that can be quantified and developed into competitive advantage
Summer Series: The new farm leader
[Leadership] Six lessons from successful farms focused on boosting their leadership skills for 2024 and beyond
Reading Time: 10 minutes Is leadership learned or is there a leadership gene? Country Guide asked the next generation of Canadian ag how they learned to lead and what are the most important leadership skills.– April Stewart, CG Associate Editor Agriculture has moved relentlessly forward for centuries. In a practical sense this is thanks to mechanical, scientific and technological […] Read more
Summer Series: Leadership skills key to farm success
[Leadership] Two farm families share how they came to see getting stronger at farm leadership as the key to their growth
Reading Time: 6 minutes Being your own boss, making your own decisions, reaping the rewards of your hard work. Self-employment has its perks as a farmer. But as every farmer also knows, self-employment has its risks and its downsides too. You’re the one who’s accountable, you’re the one who has to keep yourself motivated, you’re the one who’s always […] Read more
Program helps women take the next step in agriculture
You’re overworked already, so how can it possibly make sense to sign up for education approaches like the new ELLE program?
Reading Time: 7 minutes It was 2017, and Kristen Ritson-Bennett was understandably overwhelmed. Ritson-Bennett is an Alberta cattle nutritionist and co-owner of a successful ruminant vitamin and mineral supplement manufacturing business. Plus she was supporting her husband Andrew in starting a second business, a veterinary clinic. And, she was pregnant with her second child. That’s when Ritson-Bennett decided to […] Read more
Green Party chief quits
Paul calls leadership stint 'worst period' of her life
Reading Time: 3 minutes Ottawa | Reuters — Annamie Paul announced her resignation as head of Canada’s Green Party on Monday after losing in her own district in last week’s parliamentary election, stepping aside just under a year after becoming the nation’s first Black leader of a mainstream national party. Paul, 48, said she felt she was never truly […] Read more
Your CEO interview — six years on
12 questions to ask yourself to discover if you're continuing to fulfill your role as a leader
Reading Time: 12 minutes Let’s say you’re going to interview someone for your job as the CEO of your farm. Or maybe you’re considering someone in the next generation for the job. Or you might even be looking in the mirror, asking yourself where to focus your energy over the next year. What questions would you ask? That was […] Read more
Editor’s Note: Where are the big ideas?
Reading Time: 2 minutes One of the reasons why agriculture has mainly adapted so quickly to COVID-19 is that farmers are used to dealing with black swans. But it isn’t the only reason. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t want to underestimate the real pain that some sectors have faced. Whether that’s the logistical nightmare of beef processing or the […] Read more
CPC leadership hopefuls list ending carbon tax as priority for agriculture
Party leadership candidates also look to strengthen trade relationships
Reading Time: 6 minutes Removing the carbon tax is the main priority for the two top Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leadership candidates, according to a recent survey. Peter MacKay and Erin O’Toole, considered the front-runners in a small field of leadership hopefuls, listed eliminating the environmental policy in response to a series of questions posed to them by […] Read more
Editor’s Note: How will farms grow in the 2020s?
On the lip of the 2020s, it’s a question that deserves more than casual thought. And it needs more than one perspective, for there will be more kinds of success than ever in history
Reading Time: 2 minutes April Stewart writes in our December 2019 issue of Country Guide to tell us the proof is in. The more technological and digital a farm gets, the more important its leadership and its soft skills become. To a degree, it’s no surprise. Technology does many things, and the technology of the 2020s will do more of […] Read more
Farm CEO: The complete farm executive
Reading Time: 3 minutes What does the basic mindset of a farm CEO look like? I’m currently using a three-factor model to describe what I think makes a highly effective farm executive. The first is business results. Obviously at the end of the day if we don’t define success and achieve objectives that keep us in business, never mind […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
