“Lean” principles originally developed to increase efficiency and reduce waste in the automobile manufacturing sector are being applied in many other business and process-related sectors, including primary agriculture. Toyota is often credited as the first company to develop and intentionally implement Lean principles in their assembly lines decades ago. Last year, the Agri-Food Management Institute, working… Read More
Category: Human Resources
Mind Your Farm Business (MYFB) is a 12-part audio series exploring a wide-range of farm business management topics. Featuring thought-provoking leading experts in an engaging format, MYFB is brought to you by RBC Royal Bank. You can find the full series by tapping here. How many times have you let your gut make a big… Read More
Mind Your Farm Business (MYFB) is a 12-part audio series exploring a wide-range of farm business management topics. Featuring thought-provoking leading experts in an engaging format, MYFB is brought to you by RBC Royal Bank. What’s the plan for your farm? If that question seems far too large and long-term to answer effectively, you’re exactly… Read More
RealAgriculture, the Canadian agriculture digital media leader, is launching a new audio series to assist producers in building their farm management skills. The 12-part series — Mind Your Farm Business — is sponsored by RBC Royal Bank, and new episodes will be released twice a month, beginning June 9th, 2015. Agriculture is not isolated from… Read More
The growing season is a busy one but once in a while some unexpected free time will bust its way into your itinerary. So what do you do? Like me, many of you likely struggle more with free time than with a full calendar of appointments or to do’s. Here are some thoughts on some… Read More
Family business is a challenge for any family. Whether you are the Jones down the lane, the Millers around the bend or the McMahons of WWE fame, family business has advantages and disadvantages. Keeping the drama low in a family business environment can mean success or failure for the business long term. Since it is… Read More
A full-court press, led by Canadian mushroom growers, is on to try to stop hundreds of foreign workers specially trained for agriculture jobs in Canada from having to leave. On April 1, a federally mandated rule kicks in that requires them go home if they’ve been here four years. And it’s going to affect the… Read More
Whether in the NHL or in farming, successful teams know how to work together and communicate. Having captained the Calgary Flames to the Stanley Cup in 1989, hockey Hall of Famer (and moustache legend) Lanny McDonald has a good idea what it’s like to lead a team that accomplishes its goals. Filmed on the Brandon stop of the… Read More
When’s the last time you sat down and thought critically about who does each job on the farm? I mean REALLY thought about it? Certain roles typically go to certain people within a farm — dad might be the lead combine driver, or always driving the seeder, while sons and daughters may have to work… Read More
Layoffs in the oil industry and supporting sectors are leading people to look for jobs elsewhere, but agricultural employers shouldn’t rely on an influx of available labour, according to the head of an online agriculture job board. Eric Spell of AgCareers says it’s too early to say if low oil prices will help address the labour shortage in the… Read More
No matter where you go in the world, farming happens. It can look very different, of course — from state-of-the-art rooftop greenhouses, to expansive, scrub pastures in Australia, to scratching out barely enough to eat from a tiny plot of land in Kenya. If agriculture looks so different, what’s there to learn from seeing how… Read More
Remember seasoned sergeant Phil Esterhaus (actor Michael Conrad) in Hill St. Blues, who warmly but firmly reminded the squad “Let’s be careful out there!” as they filed out of his daily briefing? Well, the same applies to farming – it’s safer than police work, but it certainly has its hazards, not the least of which… Read More
Mark Wales, a horticulture farmer from Elgin County, Ontario, has been named as the chairperson for the Agriculture and Agri-Food Labour Task Force (LTF). The LTF is moving forward with recommendations set out in its Agriculture and Agri-Food Labour Action Plan to address agricultural industry worker shortages. Wales is also the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource… Read More
Have you recently taken over the farm? Or are you about to begin the hand-over to the next generation? Or, just maybe, your New Year’s resolution was to up your farm business management game. Whatever your reasons, Jacqueline Gerrard, of Backswath Management, will be presenting some top management tips at Crop Connect ’15. The second… Read More
One more hit out of every 20 at bats — for a baseball player, that’s the difference between an elite .300 batting average and an only-okay .250 average. Over the length of a ballplayer’s career, that extra hit every five or so games will land a player in the Hall of Fame. It’s the difference… Read More