Reading Time: 6 minutes If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s about how many of us get so much about the future so wrong. Change happens quickly and you need to adapt fast. Maybe you scrambled for extra labour when someone on your team caught COVID-19. Maybe you sold cattle when consecutive drought years increased feed […] Read more
Be your own futurist
Futurology: Forward-thinking farmers and experts aim to predict future changes for Canadian ag
Do you have a plan to learn?
A systematic approach to continuous learning is strongly linked to higher farm success
Reading Time: 5 minutes The 2015 Dollars and Sense study by Farm Management Canada is still among the most comprehensive surveys to look at which farm practices in Canada increase a farm’s business success and by how much. Here are the practices. Which is the best sign that you’re firing on all cylinders? You have a written business plan. […] Read more
Hanson Acres: On the farm, it matters what you keep your eye on
There’s magic in this farming life
Reading Time: 4 minutes Elaine kept a close watch on the combine header as the canola fed in, glancing over to check the moisture reading on the screen every few seconds. The combine’s night lights lit up the dust floating over the field. It was only a little after eight-thirty, but already dark enough that, outside the circle of […] Read more
The Outward Mindset
Guide Books Review: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations
Reading Time: 3 minutes The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform OrganizationsThe Arbinger InstituteBerrett-Koehler Publishers Do you ever think about how you think? I know it sounds flighty at first but it really is important because the way you think — whether it’s with an outward or an inward mindset — can determine the success of your […] Read more
Making a smart choice
An incredible array of leadership training programs are available in Canada. Which one is right for you?
Reading Time: 7 minutes Increasingly, Canada’s farmers are looking to leadership programs to help them achieve more and to give their operations and people their best chances for success. Programs create confidence — which, we’re learning, is an incredibly productive outcome all by itself — they build new networks and ways of thinking, and they inspire better team performance. […] Read more
A life in parallel
It’s there in many farmers from the beginning. Of course Anne Lazurko wanted to excel at farming, but there was a drive in her that was equally persistent — to become a novelist. But how does a farmer make that kind of leap?
Reading Time: 8 minutes When you’re one half of a busy couple running a farm while also raising four young children, there isn’t a lot of time left over. If you’ve got other passions or aspirations, well, they just have to wait. Except it turns out this isn’t entirely true, as Anne Lazurko was to discover. Lazurko dreamed of […] Read more
Guide Health: Drug shortages
A multiple of factors can lead to a shortage in medications
Reading Time: 3 minutes The news these days often brings us reports of drug shortages, but sometimes we don’t hear about them until we’re at the pharmacy counter, expecting to pick up our prescription. At one time drug shortages were uncommon, but we should keep in mind that, historically, there were fewer drugs than we have today, as well […] Read more
New school: The business concept that reshaped the Meunier farm
Growing numbers of mid-career farmers are enrolling in high-level business programs aimed at the farm. The experience can be transformational
Reading Time: 9 minutes [UPDATED: Jan. 9, 2023] We were feeling stuck,” Stacey Meunier recalls. For her and for husband Chad, the future was on hold. They knew what they wanted — to take over Paul Meunier and Sons Farms Limited, their family’s mixed farming operation in Barrhead, Alta., an hour and a half north of Edmonton — but […] Read more
Editor’s Note: The real thought leaders in agriculture
Reading Time: 2 minutes Once again, the big revolutions in agriculture are taking us in directions that no one really expected, led by people that so many said would never be leaders — our farmers Our days here at Country Guide are spent trying to keep pace with Canada’s farmers. It’s a bigger challenge — and a more relevant […] Read more
More than a tourist
Travel is back as an indispensable part of business and life for Canada’s farmers, but it isn’t travel like it used to be
Reading Time: 6 minutes Because this world is the only one we have, can we treat it better as we begin to travel again? As the world reopens, travellers have a unique opportunity to hit reset after this pause and explore the world differently. “Conscientious travel” — protecting cultures, preserving the environment and supporting local economies — can be […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
