If you are interested in politics and economics like I am there is no more interesting fodder every night on the television than in the United States. I love debates and conflict on topics and the US has no shortage of them right now. Whether you are right, left or moderate you cannot deny the... Read More
Category: Finance
The last seven years have not been kind to the income statement and balance sheet of the cattle feeder in Canada. With that has come a harsh reality for many small to mid €“sized feeders that were dealing at schedule one banks. Many on the schedule ones have decided to focus on the larger feeders... Read More
By Dick Haney At the risk of sounding like the Saturday Night Live character Debbie Downer, there is a potential evil that lurks among us; it is how we leverage equity in our operations to buy more agricultural farm land. I think it would be useful to examine the similarities between Las Vegas and financial... Read More
We have lots of cows in Canadian Agriculture, but we also have some sacred cows a well. One of these is the ability to shelter income through the cash method of reporting farming income. For those who don€™t know how this works, it is a simplistic formula whereby as long as you have more expenses... Read More
There and many different reasons for a company to want to make the "big deal." Some are looking for efficiency, some strive for an increase in scope, and others just see the value at certain levels. Lately the agri-business sector is under intense media coverage with the running and gunning in the marketplace by company's... Read More
The Canadian Dollar is known as a commodity currency but as of late the European Union financial situation is playing havoc with the Canadian currency. Many feedyard and cattle ranchers are really getting stressed out by how violently the dollar has moved in the recent months. As we have mentioned before on this website, it... Read More
When I took economics in University, one of the concepts that I was taught was economies of scale. This concept is defined as obtaining cost advantages that a business obtains due to expansion. In farming there is a constant thirst by farmers to add land or head space to their operation. It is quite common... Read More
Risk is well known board game, played on a map of the world, in which players effectively bet (take on calculated risk) and play to take over more and more countries and ultimately rule the world. I am just musing here, but if you were taking stock of countries and their respective currencies, would it... Read More
By Shaun Haney There are very advantageous financing programs out in the market right now for inputs (seed, crop protection, fertilizer) this winter. These financing programs may include do not pay or no interest until a given date. These can be fantastic programs for farmers but you need to be careful. You do not want... Read More
I had a great conversation today with a fellow farmer in Saskatchewan. We talked at length about the significance of the commodity prices hitting the floor boards again. Is the sky falling versus there may be some opportunities for those that do not panic sell. As I have mentioned before these are challenging times that... Read More