Reading Time: 3 minutes Managing your financial risk is a little like skinny-dipping — you’ve got to protect your assets, and that’s hard to do when you’re not covered. “When the tide goes out, everybody can see who’s swimming naked,” said MNP agricultural tax specialist Rob Strilchuk (quoting Warren Buffett). “We had a lot of good years, but when […] Read more
Are you prepared to deal with tougher times on your farm?
Know your current ratio, honestly estimate your gross revenue, and be ready to talk to your lender, says adviser
Numbers don’t lie — but can mislead if there’s not enough of them
When it comes to making decisions on the farm, the more data the better — especially if that data comes from other farms
Reading Time: 5 minutes Did you know that there’s a direct correlation between the divorce rate in Maine and the per capita consumption of margarine in the States? It’s true. If you chart the data on a graph going back a decade or two, one line rises and falls with the other. That’s the problem with data like this […] Read more
Telus buys Farm At Hand
Vancouver farm management software development firm Farm At Hand has become an arm of one of the Big Five in Canada’s communication services sector. Farm At Hand, which makes the cloud-based Crop Planner software suite for farmers and the Farm At Hand Agronomy suite for agronomists, announced Tuesday it has been wholly acquired by Telus […] Read more
What’s in the engine room of your farm business?
It’s not just the physical assets that power your enterprise and keep it moving forward
Reading Time: 3 minutes My friend Claire Booth from Australia shared a photo of her farm office referring to it as the “engine room” of their business. I like that analogy and am conscious of the fact that we all run with an engine and without that source of power or way of moving forward, we stay in one […] Read more
Updated benchmarks for AgriProfit$ tool
Reading Time: < 1 minute Updates have been made to the AgriProfit$ crops and forages benchmarks. The benchmarks — calculated averages of costs and returns by soil zones — have been updated to include individual producer’s data collected for the 2017 growing season. This includes producers’ actual costs, revenues, and margins by soil zones for different crops and forages. AgriProfit$ […] Read more
Things go better with standard operating procedures
All sorts of companies have so-called SOPs — because they save time and grief, and empower employees
Reading Time: 3 minutes Pilots complete checklists before every flight, even when flying the same plane several times a week. Farm equipment operators, on the other hand, often rely on their memory from 11 months ago when they start up the air drill or other equipment at the beginning of a new season. Some farm owners and managers, however, […] Read more
You need to up your game on managing people, say producers
Top-down management doesn’t cut it anymore, but fewer than one in five farms have a human resources plan
Reading Time: 3 minutes Five years ago, Kevin Serfas tried to manage human resources on his farm. It was a “train wreck.” Workers were walking away from the job. The people who stayed weren’t happy. And Serfas found himself on Facebook, “begging people to come run a tractor.” Finally, he went to one of his remaining workers and said […] Read more
What’s the view from your farm in 2027?
Long-term planning is easy to put off, but there can be a steep price to pay, says financial specialist
Reading Time: 2 minutes No matter what age, it’s never too early or late to put together a long-term plan for your farm, says a provincial financial specialist. “Farmers are always busy with their daily and seasonal tasks,” says Rick Dehod. “When asked what their plan is for the next 10 years, they often say they haven’t had a […] Read more
Still time to participate in AgriProfit$
Applicants accepted until Nov. 30
Reading Time: < 1 minute AgriProfit$ is accepting applicants until the end of November for its 2018 edition. Farmers participating in the survey receive customized economic reports, including a budget sheet, income statement, and analyses of major enterprises like cow-calf, drylot, and crops. Aggregate data is used to produce benchmarks and help farmers analyze their decision-making activities. The tool now […] Read more
Big farms equal big headaches — but will you pay for an adviser?
Farmers like Spencer Hilton say hiring was the best-ever investment, but management advice can seem ‘namby-pamby’
Reading Time: 4 minutes Spencer Hilton has seen the business of farming change drastically during the decades he’s spent on his fifth-generation grain operation. “In the day and age that we’re farming in right now, we’re dealing with the ‘Walmart effect,’” said the Strathmore-area farmer. “There’s a real advantage to economies of scale and size. It’s not for everybody, […] Read more