Reading Time: 9 minutes The fall of the iron curtain in l989 brought democracy to the former East Germany (DDR). For farmers like Bernd Klänhammer at Penkun, an hour and a half northeast of Berlin, it also brought, for the first time in their careers, the freedom to make their own decisions. Of course, Klänhammer wasn’t the only one […] Read more
The German question
Now that they’ve recovered from communism, these East German farms worry about the excesses of democracy
Gone to school
Guide Canada: For a growing number of Millennials, the place to learn about agriculture doesn’t have a conventional farmer anywhere in sight
Reading Time: 5 minutes “I’m energized every time I walk into this building,” says Tony Doyle. “And so is everyone else. They know we’re doing something unique here.” The building Doyle is talking about is the Centre for Food at Durham College in Oshawa, the city on the eastern edge of Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe that has been best known […] Read more
Canada’s food producers speaking up
Farmers on both sides of the Atlantic are scoring big wins with effective new consumer-outreach strategies
Reading Time: 6 minutes When I was in the Netherlands this past summer, I had the chance to visit a hog farm. That in itself is not unusual, but what stayed with me were the blunt comments of the farmer who hosted us that day. “We need consumers to like us if we want them to buy our products,” […] Read more
Could the future of farming lie indoors?
Innovation: The scale seems much too small, say farmers. But that may be its greatest strength
Reading Time: 5 minutes Outside of maybe the health care field, there are few sectors that are as innovative and changing as rapidly as agriculture. It’s what I’ll write about in this series of columns for Country Guide, because frankly, some of the technologies that are coming off the drawing boards are going to challenge the way we think […] Read more
‘Farmscaping’ for profitability, sustainability
Applying some of the same principles from kitchen design can improve the environment and the workflow on the farm
Reading Time: 5 minutes “Farmscaping” might be a new term for many western Canadian producers, but it’s shorthand for a familiar set of ideas: building features like shelterbelts and perennial strips into the farm landscape to best utilize their ecological goods and services. In other words, taking a “whole-farm” approach, with the goal of maximizing profitability and sustainability. Joanne […] 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
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
Improving nature
Corn and the environment can work hand-in-hand, and thanks to our farmers, in many cases, they already do
Reading Time: 6 minutes Every harvest season, word spreads quickly about yield. And happily, that trend line is up, with growers taking off phenomenal yields whenever the weather is halfway co-operative. But can today’s yields co-exist with a healthy environment? It’s a question that is getting asked more and more. And for the most part, it seems, the answer […] Read more
Beef industry challenged to do better
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s no secret the beef industry is under attack from environmentalists and activists — or that they frequently distort the truth. “They have an agenda that they are trying to gain information to support — they’re looking for things that have gone awry in the industry, and there have been problems,” renowned Alberta cattle researcher […] Read more
Urban agriculture in Germany
Could Munich’s urban farm be a model for Canada, helping improve quality of life in our cities and narrow the urban-rural divide?
Reading Time: 6 minutes If you have never heard of the now-extinct Schlüter tractor brand, what you need to know is that the company produced some famously unique looking machines during its corporate life. Now, this was the first opportunity I’d ever had to see a working Schlüter tractor, and it came in a city — although still on […] Read more
Learning from organic agriculture
These conventional farms are adapting techniques from organic agriculture — with a little time and care
Reading Time: 10 minutes Agriculture is always in search of the next innovation, but as most growers learn — some, the hard way — there is no silver-bullet solution. If you’re going to change things for the better, it’s going to take time, effort and likely a departure from the norm. Yet with lower crop prices, growers are also […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
