Reading Time: 8 minutes Buckle up. Commodity markets look to be in for a wild ride. China is experiencing its first major setback since its market liberalization began. It generated 40 per cent of global economic growth last year, so this is troubling. If its engine is faltering, everyone is going to feel it. Market analyst Errol Anderson tells […] Read more
Hold on tight. The global economy is a mess
Not even Errol Anderson knows where the pieces will all fall. What’s a farmer to do?
Editor’s Desk: A better marketing idea for agriculture
Reading Time: 2 minutes Marketing is in a class by itself. Nowhere else in agriculture is there so much more noise than information, or so many claims based on untested and untestable evidence. As a rule, of course, the entire financial and business ends of farming let us down in this regard, and I have complained in this space […] Read more
Digital Marketing 101 and social media tips that help promote your farm
In this last column of our value-added series, we look at how social media can boost your value-add project
Reading Time: 5 minutes Anyone can tell you (in fact, they probably already have, more than once) that the Internet is too powerful a tool to ignore for marketing your value-added products. But exactly how can you harness its potential to reach your own goals? When creating an online presence, Nigel Gordijk, owner of Common Sense Design in New […] Read more
Planning value-add ideas for your farm
In the third of her series, Helen Lammers-Helps talks to farmers about how the time they spent planning their new value-added ventures saved them money and aggravation
Reading Time: 5 minutes There’s a business school maxim that says, “failing to plan is planning to fail.” Based on the experience of Canadian farmers, it’s certainly true of value adding. Gary Morton, a Nova Scotia ag business consultant who has helped farmers launch value-added products for more than 20 years, likes to begin talking to those farmers by […] Read more
Managing production costs, charting a profit
Theory is great for textbooks. In real life, farmers like Stan Jeeves, need practical marketing programs, which they’re building for themselves
Reading Time: 5 minutes Stan Jeeves runs a mixed farm near Wolseley, a southeastern Saskatchewan community once named one of Canada’s prettiest towns by Harrowsmith Country Life Magazine. Jeeves takes a common-sense approach to selling grain. “I start with calculating my cost of production,” Jeeves says. “And then I know when I need cash flow.” From there, Jeeves looks for […] Read more
In control… ahead of the market
These farm planning strategies can elevate soybean returns, even in a volatile year
Reading Time: 12 minutes In business circles, there’s the five-year plan, the two-year plan and even the one-year and the six-month plan, each with its own sub-plans loaded with hard production and financial targets. They’re a fact of life, and they are crucial management tools. Just ask any manufacturer, or the owner of any store that turns the kinds […] Read more
Execute on that business plan
If your business plan is gathering dust, here’s how to put it into action
Reading Time: 6 minutes We’ve all been there. You’ve just come back from an amazing course that has guided you through the arduous process of developing a business plan for your farm business. You have identified your core values, you have articulated a vision, and you have chosen the strategies to get you to where you want to go. […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
