At some point, likely every farmer has been frustrated with markets and pricing, and thought about moving past commodity production and up the value chain. But as many quickly learn, direct marketing, dealing with processors, or even becoming a processor is not for everyone. In this episode of Mind Your Farm Business, Jeff Nonay, a... Read More
Category: Farm Management
The Do More Ag Foundation has launched its second awareness campaign since forming back in 2017. It Starts With Me will focus on the language around mental health and how a small change of your words can have a huge impact on someone's well-being. “Our words can have such a powerful impact, whether verbalized to... Read More
The Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) says that producers who were not paid for grain delivered to ILTA Grain Inc. will be 100 per cent compensated through the CGC's Safeguards for Grain Farmers Program. The grain company was granted creditor protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) in July of 2019. “The Canadian Grain Commission... Read More
Farmers will hear much talk of the need for resilience in the years ahead. From weather and markets, to trade, to family and managing day-to-day operations, farmers need to be able to cope with the challenges and setbacks that are routinely part of production agriculture. No one personifies resilience more than Springfield, PEI, dairy farmer... Read More
Why do family farm businesses fail? Quite often it's not economics but rather family governance issues and relationship problems, says farmer and business consultant Dick Wittman. Many farms fail because operators don't run the farm in a professional manner, says Wittman who learned plenty of valuable lessons managing a family-operated 20,000 acre crop, cattle, and... Read More
There are many variables that greatly impact the profitability of the family farm. Some of those variables include different risks and often largely depends on where your farm is located in the world. Ask yourself this question — Do you like where you farm? For the majority of farms in Canada and the U.S., you... Read More
How can farmers achieve more of what matters most and stay ahead of the curve? Successfully operating within a demanding food production system is "driven by how we handle ourselves in complexity," says Kelly Dobson, a Fairfax, Man., farmer and also president of LeaderShift Inc, a company which supports personal and professional development for business... Read More
In a spin on 'walk before you can run,' Kristjan Hebert says that farmers need to focus on the data they already generate before thinking about large-scale data collection. Hebert, managing partner of Hebert Grain Ventures, says that farmers need to focus on understanding their own numbers such as debt servicing ratio and access and... Read More
The longevity of a business is less about how well it does in the good times, and more about how it fares through the rough patches. A farm being resilient can come in many forms, but usually comes down to the strength of the management team running it and the financial nimbleness of the overall... Read More
Terry Betker has worked with farmers to establish peer groups for more than a decade. Traditionally, farmers engage with their peers to share management ideas in informal settings — everywhere from industry meetings to the local coffee shop — but formal peer groups are not common in Canadian agriculture, says Betker, president of Winnipeg-based Backswath... Read More