Reading Time: 5 minutes When Tyler Ferguson found a distinct gap in Canada’s local food system, he decided to fill it by starting his own sales, marketing and distribution company focused on getting more food products from the farm into retail. That was the first step. But only the first step. “I noticed that a lot of local food […] Read more
The Farm Network takes farm food products beyond local
The Farm Network is pioneering a new category of food business, helping farmers grow their sales of local products to reach commercial scale
China wants more
This time, it’s China’s demand for safe, high-quality foods that is exploding
Reading Time: 6 minutes For almost any marketer or producer of just about anything, the Chinese market is one they’re eager to get into. The world’s most populous country boasts a potential 1.4 billion customers, and both its middle class and their purchasing power are on the rise. Research by consultants McKinsey & Co. suggests that by 2022, more […] Read more
U.S. December feedlot cattle placements hit six-year high
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. feedlots brought in 18 per cent more cattle in December than the year-earlier month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Friday, which topped forecasts and reached a six-year high for that month. Higher prices for slaughter-ready, or cash, cattle last month improved profit for feedlots. That allowed them to […] Read more
Looking for more price security when selling grain?
Basic marketing tools can generate some of the quickest paybacks on the farm. Here’s how one advisory company gets its farmers started
Reading Time: 6 minutes Pulling out of the farm gate with a loaded grain truck, a producer can turn right and go to a local elevator that is posting a price that’s $20 a tonne more for your crop, or you could turn left and go to another elevator that’s paying $20 less. Which is the best choice? Reality […] Read more
Selling farm-direct to consumers
Small, direct-market farmers are building better business cases for their farms. But will business smarts be enough?
Reading Time: 8 minutes Allison Fenske pulls a reluctant grey cat off her dining room table to make room for her jars of homemade pea-shoot pesto, pickled beets and spicy slices of jicama turnip. She points to the turnips. “Jonathan says he always tells people you can eat them the way you’d eat an apple, and I was like, […] Read more
Is direct-farm marketing an opportunity for larger farms?
Reading Time: 4 minutes The growing gap between consumer demand and the ability of the farm business community to meet that demand presents a dangerous vacuum for small farmers, believes Charlie Touchette, executive director of the North American Farmers’ Direct Marketing Association. It could, he says, become a vacuum that gets filled by corporate entities rather than local producers. […] Read more
Orchard’s business success inspired by Disney
Andrew and Jennifer Lovell turned this small U-pick into a thriving farm market and entertainment destination, using the magic of Disney’s marketing psychology
Reading Time: 9 minutes Although neither of them had been raised on a farm, Andrew and Jennifer Lovell bought the shares of a farm corporation four years ago. The farm was a small orchard near Keswick Ridge, a half-hour west of Fredericton, N.B., and when they took over, it was only 37 acres of apple trees, a quarter acre […] Read more
The next big step?
As their opportunities get bigger and better, more farmers are likely to hire marketing agencies
Reading Time: 5 minutes Among my questions was the natural one for a skeptic to ask. “How are you going to convince farmers to take on an agency and pay all those fees?” Seated across from me in a Guelph restaurant called Borealis — a thriving, trendy, happening sort of place that describes itself as “obsessively local” — agency […] Read more
How agricultural marketers are using your data
You farm better by studying the stacks of data you collect about your crops. Ag suppliers sell better by studying the stacks of data they collect about YOU
Reading Time: 7 minutes Using customer knowledge to outperform the competition has been a critical survival strategy for small-town businesses as they struggle to fend off competition from mega-retailers. Now, those mega-retailers are showing they can get to know their customers too. They can even get to know them better than the small shops. Don’t believe it? Then just […] Read more
When good isn’t good enough
How do you go from good to great at marketing? With volatile years ahead, these five steps will help
Reading Time: 4 minutes Neil Blue cut his grain-marketing teeth as a farmer in the bad ol’ ’80s. He had no choice. It was either that or rack up loss after loss. “Now the second and sometimes the third generation of farmers are learning about these things,” says Blue, today a marketing analyst with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry. “Some […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
