Reading Time: 4 minutes You may have heard the saying, “Take care of the small things and the big things take care of themselves.” This is a great piece of advice for life in general, and it also very much applies in the context of running a farm business, where even small changes can have a big impact on […] Read more
Follow the five per cent rule
Incremental changes can have a big impact on your operation
The business of being young
Ryan Boyd believes regenerative agriculture is the right strategy to get him off the expansion treadmill
Reading Time: 5 minutes About 10 years ago, Ryan Boyd came to his father Jim with some new ideas, and Jim knew it was time to listen. Ryan talked about a new strategy, adopting regenerative and sustainable approaches in order to enhance their productivity. “Dad was more than willing to try something else,” Ryan says. “He’d always believed the […] Read more
The ‘sustainable’ agriculture advantage
Staking out the high ground in this debate could be good not just for the soil, but for bank accounts too
Reading Time: 4 minutes Is “sustainability” just another buzzword, or will it have a genuine impact on how farmers in Western Canada do business? Denis Trémorin, director for sustainability at Pulse Canada, believes there is substance behind “sustainability”— but it might not mean exactly what you think it means. Trémorin says sustainability is about operating in a socially, economically […] Read more
Consumers want sustainable beef, but defining that may be murky
Reading Time: 3 minutes CNS Canada –– McDonald’s plans on using sustainable beef by 2016, and intends on sourcing at least part of it from Canadian producers. The fast food giant’s latest step toward sustainability is to define what exactly that means. Defining sustainability is important, according to a beef brand officer, because in some cases it’s something consumers […] Read more
Win the right battle – for the sake of food
Not only is the food we eat bad for us, but the practices that produced it are unsound too. Or so goes the message that too many consumers get too often from our mainstream media
Reading Time: 5 minutes The science is clear. “If you look at Western Canada and you look at a four-year crop rotation that starts anchored by a pulse crop at the front end, I believe that’s one of the most sustainable farming systems in the world,” says John Oliver, president of Maple Leaf Bio-Concepts. Many of the loudest, harshest […] Read more
Is momentum being lost for sustainable agriculture?
Farmers have made great strides toward sustainability, but there are fears that we’re starting to slip back
Reading Time: 5 minutes Have we become more sustainable?” asks Martin Entz, professor of natural systems agriculture at the University of Manitoba. “In some ways we’ve moved forward a long way, but there’s also some things we’ve moved backwards on.” Farmers have scored big wins in erosion control, the rate of organic matter loss, water use efficiency, weed management, […] Read more
The business of Arctic char fishing in Nunavut
Even north of the Arctic Circle, the business of producing food is real business
Reading Time: 6 minutes When he lists the challenges of operating a business in Canada’s northern reaches, Stephane Lacasse, general manager of Kitikmeot Foods in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut mentions Mother Nature. Twice. It’s enough to make him sound like a farmer. That impression gets even stronger when he continues his list by saying that having a Plan B is […] Read more
Promoting agriculture around the globe
Why are other countries better than Canada at getting their young people excited about careers in agriculture? With support from Glacier FarmMedia, Nuffield scholar Becky Parker is on her way to find out
Reading Time: 5 minutes Becky Parker’s passion for agriculture and its future shines through when she talks about her upcoming two-year research adventure as a Nuffield scholar. But Parker also knows that it’s going to take the best people doing the best work to keep our agriculture at the forefront. In particular, she is focused on one crucial question. […] Read more
Guenther: McDonald’s sustainability goals to reach beyond beef
Reading Time: 3 minutes Farmers who want to keep supplying the world’s biggest quick-service restaurant chains can expect more scrutiny of their methods going forward. That’s because the chains’ customers appear to be looking for more sustainably-produced food — so companies such as McDonald’s in turn are looking for third-party verification to prove the ingredients they source make the […] Read more
Can American farms keep getting bigger?
Now even big farmers have their doubts and feel it's reached a tipping point
Reading Time: 5 minutes About three hours north of the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana Delta Plantation was the largest U.S. crop farm, working 100,000 acres. But that was only until 2005. Then the farm was broken up and sold. During a decade of its dizzying climb, Eddie Davis managed up to 34,000 acres for the company. It was easy […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
