Farming is not just about producing crops or raising livestock. Much of what separates high performance farms from average to below-average farms is their ability to excel at everything from human resources management and looking after their team to understanding financial ratios and how to deal with the banker, says Rob Hannam, lead facilitator for... Read More
Category: Farm Management
"I just don't have time." How often do we use this as an excuse for not exercising, sleeping or carrying out an activity that we know would benefit our overall health and wellness? We all know that exercise, eating right and getting enough sleep are important, but translating that knowledge into behaviour and sustaining it... Read More
In 2009, 51.2% of Canada's business and financial professionals were women, according to Statistics Canada, well up from the 38.3% in 1987. But, there's still room for movement into managerial positions, with 37% of those roles being filled by women, and only 31.6% in senior managerial roles (both up from 30.1% and 21%, respectively, in... Read More
In an era of low interest rates, it's easy to become complacent about the cost of borrowing money, but the day will come when rates rise again. How would your farm handle a one percent increase in rates? What about a three percent rise? Or five percent? Those levels would still be well within the... Read More
“The definition of mentorship is to empower. The meaning of empowerment is to enable, liberate, engage, free and permit. It is the drawing out of the very best in a person without the constraints of expectation or entitlement. Thus, to mentor is to guide the process so that an individual has the power to change... Read More
Life is all about relationships, whether working with a neighbour on the farm or helping students and teachers understand science. And that's exactly what Bonnie Schmidt, the president of Let's Talk Science, discussed at the Advancing Women Conference East in Toronto this week, where she delved into the importance of trusting others and working together.... Read More
Dairy farmers are currently employing 34,000 robots around the globe and manufacturer DeLaval expects that number will double in the next five years. Since robots began appearing on farms in the 1990s, most have been confined to smaller farms throughout Europe, including Germany, France and the Netherlands. Canada currently sits sixth in the ranking of... Read More
The majority of respondents to the Saskatchewan government's farmland ownership review this summer said they oppose foreign ownership and investors such as Canadian pension funds purchasing farmland in the province. More than 3,200 people submitted their views during the consultation process that ran from May 20 to August 10. The results were published on Wednesday.... Read More
It’s estimated as many as 5,000 people transition out of the Canadian Forces each year. Most of them are between the ages of 28 and 35, and they’re looking for a meaningful career as they enter civilian life. At the same time, finding skilled employees is consistently one of the top challenges across Canadian agriculture... Read More
Society as a whole, including agriculture, is experiencing a trend toward the use of more autonomous machines that can communicate amongst themselves and optimize their own activity using “big data” analytics. That might sound like a whole lot of high-level tech lingo, but it raises serious questions for farmers on the ground: will there come... Read More