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
Category: Farm Management
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
There are many variables that greatly impact the profitability of the family farm. Some of those variables include different risks and often largely depends on where your farm is located in the world. Ask yourself this question — Do you like where you farm? For the majority of farms in Canada and the U.S., you… Read More
How can farmers achieve more of what matters most and stay ahead of the curve? Successfully operating within a demanding food production system is “driven by how we handle ourselves in complexity,” says Kelly Dobson, a Fairfax, Man., farmer and also president of LeaderShift Inc, a company which supports personal and professional development for business… 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
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
Ontario has introduced its draft legislation to increase security on farms — the Security From Trespass and Protecting Food Safety Act, 2019. The focus, certainly, is on the biosecurity and food risk associated with non-authorized people traipsing through farms and interfering with animals on their way to slaughter. The act, likely to be passed in… Read More
When you think about filling part-time, short-term or contract work positions in agriculture, most likely assume the discussion will be about the temporary foreign worker program. But work opportunities in agriculture are as diverse as the industry itself, and AgCall has approached filling these part-time labour and expertise needs with a unique business model. Arron… 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