Finding people to work on farms is a major challenge in much of rural Canada. To understand the labour issues facing the ag sector, the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council is asking producers to complete a survey outlining their farms’ labour requirements. The Conference Board of Canada is conducting the survey on behalf of the CAHRC, seeking participation from… Read More
Category: Farm Management
Your farm is your business and your career, and just like any other line of work, professional development is important. How do you make sure your farm is running at its most profitable? How do you get up-to-speed on rules and regulations? How to do you keep track of where your farm is at? The… Read More
On November 5, at Agri-Trade Expo, BASF announced the release of Compass Grower, a new web-based farm management tool. The tool was developed by Affinitiy Management Ltd., a partner of Microsoft, and is intended to fully integrate all aspects of farming in their accounting platform, which combines crop, financial and grain marketing management data. With… Read More
With record prices and strong profits over the last year, are we on the verge of seeing renewed excitement about pig production in Canada? The previous decade was filled with challenges, but with pork prices where they’ve been over the last year, there should be some incentive to build new barns, or at least fill… Read More
Farm management and variable rate advisory firm Decisive Farming and Canada’s largest Case IH dealer — Rocky Mountain Equipment — have announced an alliance to integrate tech support for variable rate equipment. “There’s always been a gap in the market before this alliance between the variable rate provider and the equipment dealer. This is closing… Read More
The U.S. is running out of options if it wants to avoid facing retaliatory trade action from Canada in response to its country of origin labeling (COOL) rules. Canada could have permission from the World Trade Organization to implement retaliatory tariffs by this time next year if the American government doesn’t make changes to COOL… Read More
By Kim Keller, farmer and co-founder of FarmAtHand This post first appeared on Farm at Hands’ blog, here. Lately there has been a lot of media and coverage on agriculture — investments, technology, GMO vs. non-GMO, green fields and blue-sky opportunities and more. But very little attention is given to the real people working in… Read More
A federally funded focus group exercise held across the country last December named farmers as victims of classic stereotypes, and revealed how misconceptions continue to dominate people’s perceptions of agriculture. Notably, the focus group participants said they saw farming as shrinking, stuck in time, environmentally unfriendly and unlikely to be a family business for much… Read More
A creative and patient approach to marketing will be needed to maximize returns on the lower quality crop produced in Western Canada this year, suggests a farm management specialist with Manitoba Agriculture. Poor weather during the growing season and at harvest has resulted in a wide range of downgrading factors, including fusarium, mildew, sprouting and frost…. Read More
While it can be difficult to picture it from the middle of a wheat field in rural Saskatchewan, changes to the global economy have a very real impact at the field level…eventually. It’s those big-picture economic forces that J.P Gervais, chief economist with Farm Credit Canada (FCC) will outline at his upcoming presentation at the… Read More
I suspect there are more people who’d elect for a non-necessary root canal than would like to strike up a conversation with dad about when he’ll finally hand over the reins to the farm. And that’s too bad, really, because the sooner the conversations about long-term farm business planning begin, the better chance there is… Read More
Agri-Food Management Excellence, Farm Management Canada and the family of Robert L. Ross have established the Robert L. Ross Memorial Scholarship program, rewarding one Canadian farmer with the opportunity to participate in the CTEAM program and “continue on a path towards excellence.” Robert (Bob) L. Ross was instrumental in inspiring and encouraging farm management excellence… Read More
If you can’t see the embedded audio, click here. If Ontario wants to build an industry, the Beef Farmers of Ontario have a solution — open up just a portion of the Great Clay Belt crown lands to aspiring ranchers. The Clay Belt in northern Ontario and Quebec covers an astounding 180,000 sq. km, split… Read More
Editor’s note: This week, September 22-28, 2014, is national organic week. This post is dedicated to all 3 organic producers that read this site. Thank you for following along! “My dad let me do things my way, so I’m doing the same for them,” laughs Josef Hagen, when asked what pushed his dairy farm near… Read More
If you’re looking for ways and means to step up your farm leadership skills and tackle the tough questions regarding moving the farm from one generation to the next, you’re not alone. Canadian farms are in the midst of significant business transition that’s set to continue well into the next decade. Farm Management Canada is… Read More