Elaine Shein

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Farmers need to be creative if they want to be successful, suggests an American with a financial co-operative. Paul DeBriyn, president of AgStar Financial Services in Mankato, Minnesota, said the most successful farmers are often “the ones you don’t hear about.” He added they are often responsive to change. He said […] Read more

GAGETOWN, N.B. – Four generations of the Stirling family have grown apples in New Brunswick, and Blair Stirling is most excited about a new apple variety he is introducing to the family orchard near Gagetown. “I’m energized,” he said, with obvious enthusiasm. “My goal is to have 500 bins (almost 170 tonnes) of Honeycrisp.” Other […] Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn. – John Johnson remembers the first time he went to pitch a product to Wal-Mart a few years ago. He and 40 other potential sellers sat in a room with theatre seats and picked numbers. When his number came up, he walked down a hallway a quarter of a block long, past […] Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn. – When a box of Cheerios clears the sales till in a grocery store, it isn’t only the consumer and the store clerk who know what was bought. The scanned data from the sale “goes to the store or grocery chain and straight to the manufacturer, so General Mills knows how many […] Read more

As Irish farmer Jim McCarthy enters the small town café about an hour outside Dublin, local farmers acknowledge him with a nod. There are no warm welcomes, just courteous signs of recognition. The cell phone-toting, cigar chain-smoking McCarthy settles in by the window and glances out at the street. He has no illusions about his […] Read more

Since the federal agriculture minister says it is time for some farmers to pursue new careers outside of farming, here’s one to consider — something that can take advantage of all those long hours spent on tractor seats. Farmers can become professional seat-fillers. I was unaware of these patient human beings until a recent story […] Read more

Saskatchewan has a lot of potential, but people – particularly farmers – need to change their attitudes, says the executive director of the Saskatchewan Agrivision Corporation. Al Scholtz, from the non-profit organization encouraging Saskatchewan agribusiness growth, said there is a need for more positive farmer attitudes, political leadership and quick action. Scholtz spoke at an […] Read more

BALLYCOLLA, Ireland – John Dwan of Tipperary represents the dilemma faced by sheep producers in Ireland. He does all he can to be viable, but without European Union subsidies, he admits he probably would have quit farming in 1999. As he fed some of the prize-winning purebred Beclare sheep he brought to the Irish Plowing […] Read more