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

Terry Betker has worked with farmers to establish peer groups for more than a decade. Traditionally, farmers engage with their peers to share management ideas in informal settings  — everywhere from industry meetings to the local coffee shop — but formal peer groups are not common in Canadian agriculture, says Betker, president of Winnipeg-based Backswath… 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

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