Despite armies of well-meaning accountants, bankers and consultants urging them to do so, many Canadian farm families don’t have a plan in place to transfer ownership between generations. It could be the word succession that’s getting in the way. This can imply an abrupt change, when the older generation is booted out to pasture and... Read More
Category: Farm Management
If drought concerns, disease pressure, or low commodity prices have you scratching your head on crop rotation tweaks, Alberta farmers have access to two, free crop planning and profitability programs offered by the provincial agriculture department. The first program, Crop Choice$, allows farmers to input their own costs and yield expectations, and is also fully... Read More
Just like highly successful people share several traits, highly profitable farms share consistent attributes. Regardless of farm type or geography, there are farmer traits and business management practices common to profitable farms. "The number one practice driving farm profitability is lifelong learning and your commitment to building your skills," says Heather Watson, executive director of... Read More
We live in an age of disruption. Middle man getting in the way? Just work around them. Whether it's ride-sharing such as Uber, house rentals via Air BnB, or crowdfunding to make something happen, several established industries are in the midst of a I-can-do-it-myself revolution. For highly competitive, highly regulated industries, such as taxis and... Read More
Ontario farmers have a new cost-share program to help them reduce their carbon footprint and become more energy efficient. The GreenON Agriculture program, recently announced by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, is specifically aimed at producers of agricultural commodities in permanent, climate-controlled buildings. The Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association will... Read More
Ontario's soils are losing organic matter. What builds organic matter? Perennial and forage species! But if you're going to plant perennial hay or pasture, you have to have something to feed it to or you won't be farming long enough to see the value of the added organic matter. And that's a slight problem, as... Read More
With the five-year Growing Forward 2 agriculture framework wrapping up next month, federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay launched six federal programs under the new Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) at the Canada's Agriculture Day celebration in Ottawa on Tuesday. CAP is the acronym for the new $3 billion, five-year federal-provincial-territorial agriculture funding agreement that begins on... Read More
Precision agriculture company Farmers Edge has plans to disrupt the crop insurance industry, announcing an agreement with global reinsurer PartnerRe on Tuesday. The four-year deal will see Farmers Edge and PartnerRe jointly develop new agriculture insurance products based on field data that Farmers Edge already collects for agronomic reasons. "For the longest time we've been... Read More
Low unemployment, major tax cuts, and looming trillion dollar deficits — the U.S. economy is hot, with growing concerns that it may be at risk of over-heating. Increasing odds of higher inflation and interest rates have stoked a pullback and volatility in the stock market after the Dow climbed to record highs in late January.... Read More
Forget the standard five and 10-year outlooks of strategic planning. Instead, have you figured out where to best put your time in in a day? Whether or not you and your spouse are collaborating to your full potential? Is technology helping or hindering your farm operation? These are the kinds of questions Nick Bontis, professor... Read More