It wasn't that many years ago that corn and soybean growers were riding the wave of $7 corn, high land rent, and applying all the groceries to every acre. In 2016, that wave of optimism has disappeared as suggested in the DTN / Progressive Farmer Ag Producer Confidence Index (ACI) results. The recent survey produced... Read More
Category: Finance
For 32 years, Rob Hall worked in agricultural banking in Ontario – sometimes at the very top of the food chain, and always on the management side of the desk. Now, he’s switched sides. He’s on the farmer’s side. And he’s eager to talk in plain language. In February, Hall launched BankSpeak, a business finance... Read More
A private member's bill tabled in the House of Commons last week aims to reduce the tax burden of intergenerational transfers of farms that are incorporated. "My bill would end a blatantly unfair situation that puts business people, farmers, and fishing vessel operators at a disadvantage when they want to pass their business on to... Read More
When thinking about risks to your farm, what comes to mind? Weather and market risks are usually at the top of the list, but there are many other areas where a farm business may be exposed. These risks are often unrecognized because nobody's taken the time to go through an exercise of assessing risks and... Read More
What do you want to improve on your farm this spring? As part of TechTour LIVE last month, Rob Hannam of Synthesis Agri-Food Network encouraged farmers to apply "lean" principles to their farm operations. As he explains in the video below, "lean" is a philosophy for reducing loss and waste from a process. There are... Read More
Working capital is the king of financial metrics, especially during the bottom of a market cycle. A farm can have large swaths of land and other equity on its balance sheet, but if it doesn't have cash or liquid assets to make monthly payments, the business will soon be in trouble. "A wheelbarrow full of... Read More
In the past, farms looking to grow simply bought more land, but that's not as easy as it used to be. Rising land prices are forcing producers to be creative in finding opportunities for growth, which in some cases leads to joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions — the topic of this episode of the Mind... Read More
In what areas does your farm business excel? What are you poor at? And how can you respond to make improvements? Self-assessment and continuous improvement are what separates high-performance farms from the average. Rob Hannam, President and Client Director of Synthesis Agri-Food Network, joins us for episode 14 of the Mind Your Farm Business podcast... Read More
What management practices and behaviours make farmers more financially successful? A report commissioned by the Agri-Food Management Institute and Farm Management Canada attempts to answer this question. “With the Dollars and Sense study we’re trying to determine what makes a leading farmer. How do they end up in the top 25% of farmers versus the... Read More
Forget the silver bullet, whether it's some nonexistent piece of machinery or the latest snake oil crop input. In reality, the key to boosting a farm's bottom line is incremental improvements that add up. Kristjan Hebert (@kristjanhebert) is a farmer from Fairlight, Saskatchewan and a proponent of the "five percent rule" — a philosophy advanced... Read More