Layoffs in the oil industry and supporting sectors are leading people to look for jobs elsewhere, but agricultural employers shouldn’t rely on an influx of available labour, according to the head of an online agriculture job board. Eric Spell of AgCareers says it’s too early to say if low oil prices will help address the... Read More
Category: Farm Management
It’s an age-old question — which is the best dairy breed? Like most farming questions, the answer is rarely a simple A or B and is more likely to be a qualified “it depends,” but Elliot Currie, with the University of Guelph, headed up a project recently to try and answer the question of which... Read More
Millions of dollars can be spent on marketing, but to build a strong brand, you still need a good product. Having a high-quality product is what helped the Cooper sports equipment brand reach a 70 percent market share in hockey globally and a 30 percent market share in Major League Baseball, explains Donald Cooper, who... Read More
No matter where you go in the world, farming happens. It can look very different, of course — from state-of-the-art rooftop greenhouses, to expansive, scrub pastures in Australia, to scratching out barely enough to eat from a tiny plot of land in Kenya. If agriculture looks so different, what’s there to learn from seeing how... Read More
Remember seasoned sergeant Phil Esterhaus (actor Michael Conrad) in Hill St. Blues, who warmly but firmly reminded the squad “Let’s be careful out there!” as they filed out of his daily briefing? Well, the same applies to farming – it’s safer than police work, but it certainly has its hazards, not the least of which... Read More
Recently, I was asked to speak at the Alberta Ag Services Board's 70th annual meeting. The theme centered around change and all that agriculture had evolved through in the last 70 years. From horse-drawn implements, to variable rate, sectional control-equipped seeding equipment, the last 70 years has literally been a technological revolution in producing food.... Read More
Mark Wales, a horticulture farmer from Elgin County, Ontario, has been named as the chairperson for the Agriculture and Agri-Food Labour Task Force (LTF). The LTF is moving forward with recommendations set out in its Agriculture and Agri-Food Labour Action Plan to address agricultural industry worker shortages. Wales is also the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource... Read More
Have you recently taken over the farm? Or are you about to begin the hand-over to the next generation? Or, just maybe, your New Year's resolution was to up your farm business management game. Whatever your reasons, Jacqueline Gerrard, of Backswath Management, will be presenting some top management tips at Crop Connect '15. The second... Read More
One more hit out of every 20 at bats — for a baseball player, that’s the difference between an elite .300 batting average and an only-okay .250 average. Over the length of a ballplayer’s career, that extra hit every five or so games will land a player in the Hall of Fame. It’s the difference... Read More
A recent survey suggested that 52% of family businesses don’t have a succession plans. Farms are family businesses — does that number sound about right to you? If so, there are thousands upon thousands of farms and farmers that are still dragging their feet on planning the long-term viability of their farm businesses. What will... Read More