Reading Time: 5 minutes There are many reasons why farmers are drawn to value adding. You might have excess capacity in the field or the barn, for instance, or maybe if you milled grain into flour, you could retain good staff by providing year-round positions. Or maybe you’re wondering if an on-farm market could solve your problems by creating […] Read more
Step one to value adding: Evaluation
You’ve got a great idea for a new product. Or maybe not
Producers vote down Ontario beef checkoff increase
Reading Time: 3 minutes A bid to increase the checkoff paid by Ontario’s beef farmers to Beef Farmers of Ontario was quashed when it failed to get the 66 per cent support it needed for approval. Why it matters: Beef Farmers of Ontario pulled from its reserves to fund at close-to $1 million deficit in 2017 and was planning […] Read more
Milk ad awareness beating top brands
Reading Time: 3 minutes Dairy Farmers of Canada is trying harder to track how well its marketing efforts boost milk sales, after Ontario members pulled promotion funding over a lack of information. Dairy Farmers of Canada’s (DFC) policy conference this week in Ottawa included a presentation by Don Mayo, global managing partner for IMI, an organization that measures media […] Read more
Ontario’s dairy farmers ramp up own marketing
Reading Time: 2 minutes Dairy Farmers of Ontario is starting to build its own consumer marketing department, now that it’s retaining marketing funds collected from farmers and no longer sending tens of millions of dollars to Dairy Farmers of Canada. What does it mean? Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s withdrawal from national marketing of milk has meant upheaval at Dairy […] Read more
What’s for dinner, Canada?
Change is growing a lot faster in our grocery stores than on our farms. So is opportunity
Reading Time: 9 minutes The food that got put on just about any dinner plate in Canada 30 years ago was the same as got put on all the other plates. Every kitchen cooked up meat and potatoes with a side of veg. Yes, basic tomato-based pastas could sometimes be served but they were definitely “ethnic,” while “convenience” described […] Read more
U.S. September cattle placements surge
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — Ranchers in September drove 13.5 per cent more cattle into U.S. feedlots than the same month a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported on Friday. The result topped analysts’ average forecasts and hit its highest level for the month in six years. “The good news for the consumer is […] Read more
Setting the right price for the grocery shelf
Canada’s grocery stores are eager for more producers to fill their shelves with great straight-from-the-farm products. To win, though, you’ve got to price them right
Reading Time: 7 minutes From the outside, it looks likes a huge opportunity just waiting for you to grab hold of it. And maybe it really is. We’ve all been there. You already have an idea of what it costs to grow your crops and raise your livestock, and one day when you’re pushing your cart down the aisle […] Read more
Editor’s Note: Even in the East, it’s good the West won
Five years after Ottawa put the last spike in the Canadian Wheat Board, farmers are showing they’re more than sharp enough to do their own marketing
Reading Time: 2 minutes Of course the optics might have been much different. If commodity prices had sunk far below the average cost of production, the West’s cartoonists would have had a field day calling for Ottawa to throw a life ring to farmers who had lost their pool. Even so, as Country Guide field editor Lisa Guenther reports […] Read more
After the CWB
Whether you farm in the West or East, looking at how Prairie farmers are managing their sales after five years on their own will make you a better marketer
Reading Time: 9 minutes Maybe you mourned its demise, or maybe you danced on its grave. Either way, five years after the federal government put the Canadian Wheat Board’s single desk six feet under, it’s clear there will be no resurrection. How have farmers adapted to marketing wheat without the single desk? Where are they excelling, and where not? […] Read more
U.S. July feedlot cattle placements smaller than expected
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — Ranchers in July placed 2.7 per cent more cattle in U.S. feedlots than a year ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported on Friday, which fell short of average analysts’ forecasts. Dwindling profits for feedyards, after being paid less for their cattle by packers, discouraged them from buying calves for fattening […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
