You might think that how your parents treated you growing up has little to do with what kind of employee or manager you are (yes, even on the farm), but in fact, parenting has a profound impact on how we interact in the workplace. Everything from how we dress and present ourselves, to our priorities,... Read More
Category: Succession Planning
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
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
For 20 years, Len Davies has been helping Canadian farm families develop and implement farm succession plans. Over two decades, Davies and his Ontario-based Davies Legacy Planning Group have helped 600 farm families navigate the succession process. Farm Management Canada acknowledged Davies' efforts by awarding him the 2019 Wilson Loree Award at its recent Agricultural... Read More
Working with family can be the most rewarding part of the farm business, but it also has the potential to be one of the most challenging aspects, full of emotion, relationship evolution, and conflict. In this episode of Mind Your Farm Business, host Shaun Haney is joined by Ed and Lyle Peters, father-son farm partners... Read More
We've seen results from an early-campaign survey on what Canadians are worried about in regards to food, and we've heard from each of the four main parties heading into this federal election. But what I want to know is, what are YOUR priorities, Canadian agriculture? As media, I watched the debate, I interviewed Sylvain Charlebois... Read More
It's unlikely that anyone goes in to a marriage expecting it to fail, but the reality is that marriages do end, and when a farm business and farm property is involved it can get very messy, very quickly — It doesn't have to be this way. Instead of thinking of a pre-nuptial agreement as an... Read More
When a farm business transitions from one generation to the next, there's a laundry list of technical things to do — business structure changes, estate planning, loans, and insurance. But there's more to farm succession than just the technical aspects, and Farm Credit Canada (FCC) has created a new role within the organization to help... Read More