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Equipment sales expected to soften in 2024

Interest rates, equipment prices and commodity prices will all play a role, says FCC

Reading Time: 2 minutes According to FCC's 2024 outlook for the Canadian farm equipment market, new sales are projected to be softer in 2024 based on three factors: higher interest rates, elevated equipment prices and a decline in commodity prices.

Now there’s a new question for Pasztor: how big should #andyclean aim to grow?

Good, clean fun. The man behind #andyclean

What happens when an inside joke turns into a real business?

Reading Time: 11 minutes Business in 2023 is different. Sure, there are still the traditional paths. Some farmers still work hard to identify a market and then chart a methodical approach to launch a business into it. Others take up the mantle from their parents, as young farmers always have, finding ways as they do to add their own […] Read more


A CNH Industrial building in Turin, Italy. Photo: Reuters/ Massimo Pinca/File

CNH Industrial beats profit estimates, confirms outlook despite recession fears

Reading Time: 2 minutes Milan | Reuters – Agricultural and construction machine maker CNH Industrial CNHI.MI beat estimates on Friday with a 14 percent rise in industrial operating profit in the second quarter and confirmed its full year outlook despite bracing for a global recession. “Whether we face a global recession in 2023 is up for debate, but we […] Read more

Anti-tank ‘hedgehogs’ are seen in Maidan Nezalezhnosti Square in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on March 9, 2022. Farmers are among those assembling the obstacles, set up to block roads against advancing armoured vehicles. (Yevhen Kotenko/Ukrinform/Abacapress.com via Reuters)

Bread and war: Farmers in the fight for Ukraine

Agriculture, being the most important industry in Ukraine, will play a large part in the war, a Ukrainian ag journalist writes

Reading Time: 5 minutes It is very difficult to explain what a person feels when they’re awakened at 5 a.m., when a rocket explodes near their house. That’s exactly what I experienced Feb. 24. The first thing I did was fill my car with gasoline. Then we bought a lot of products we thought we might need — medicines […] Read more


File photo of a view near the Canadian end of the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Windsor and Detroit and is considered one of North America’s busiest trade routes. (Steven_Kriemadis/iStock/Getty Images)

Pandemic border protests strand cattle and car parts

Reading Time: 2 minutes Ottawa | Reuters — Protests in Canada against vaccine mandates have disrupted two key U.S. border crossings, and are snarling hundreds of millions of dollars daily of trade, ranging from cattle to car parts. Demonstrations who at first demanded an end to federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates for cross-border truck drivers began Jan. 28 in the […] Read more

3D printers are already on the market, and faster, better models are in commercial development.

Time to hit ‘Print’ for that machinery part?

How about using your 3D printer to reproduce broken machinery parts? That capability is already here, and it’s getting better all the time

Reading Time: 4 minutes First, let’s get the name right. Until now, we’ve been calling it 3D printing. It’s a name that will probably stick around for a while, but those in the know are already calling it by its newer name, “additive manufacturing.” “The technology is far, far more user friendly and there are really good desktop printers […] Read more


One of the key themes that runs throughout the book is keeping things in perspective. Or as Luke Sheppard puts it, “The effort invested in ‘getting it right’ should be commensurate with the importance of the decision.”

A “manual” for the farm

Luke Sheppard’s lessons from 20 years at Deere

Reading Time: 5 minutes What do you get when a John Deere insider writes about business? Well, this is no run-of-the-mill self-help book. It’s designed and written just like that tractor service manual on your shop shelf. It’s packed with specific instructions, diagrams and spreadsheets, all designed to help the reader take logical steps and methodically correct problems or […] Read more

A CNH manufacturing plant at Sorocaba, west of Sao Paulo in southeastern Brazil. (Photo courtesy CNH Industrial)

CNH Industrial bets on strong market to counter worst supply chain situation

Reading Time: 2 minutes Milan | Reuters – Italian-American vehicle maker CNH Industrial on Friday raised its revenue and free cash flow forecasts for this year, confident an industry cyclical upturn would help it offset a severe impact from supply chain constraints. “It’s the worst supply chain situation I’ve seen in my career,” Chief Executive Scott Wine told analysts. […] Read more


(Eyfoto/iStock/Getty Images)

‘Essential’ travel rule fuzzy on farmers picking up parts, inputs

U.S. border officers will have final say on Canadian farmers' cross-border business trips

Reading Time: 3 minutes Whether Canadian farmers can continue to pick up machinery parts and other products for their operations in the United States is at the discretion of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. At 11:59 p.m. ET Friday, Canada and the U.S. temporarily restricted non-essential travel between the two nations to try and slow the spread of […] Read more

(Greg Berg photo)

Machinery costs driving up fixed farming expenses

Reading Time: < 1 minute MarketsFarm — Fixed costs on farms continue to rise year-over-year, a statistic largely attributed to increasing land values and interest rates. At the beginning of 2019, Farm Credit Canada (FCC) reported farmland values across Canada increased by an average of 6.6 per cent during the previous year. But that’s not the main driver of fixed […] Read more