The Conference Board of Canada’s Centre for Food in Canada recently released the report Seeds for Success: Enhancing Canada’s Farming Enterprises. The report, which looks at farming in Canada, confirms previously held observations about farm management and offers new insights on specific questions: What are the business characteristics of farms? What is the structure of […] Read more
Stories by Terry Betker, PAg
Commodity and interest changes could challenge financing
So, how do they look? The crops, that is. It’s a bit late for a lot of farmers, but maybe it’s a good enough start. They say that you can’t make a crop in the spring but you can sure lose one. It may be fair to say that it’s not lost yet and that […] Read more
Compensation can be more than a paycheque
Compensation will become a more important topic in the years to come. Farms are becoming larger and more complex, and more people are involved in many roles: ownership, management and labour. Non-family members have key management roles in many farms. For these reasons, understanding and proactively dealing with compensation is increasingly important. Managing compensation can […] Read more
Fairness tricky concept when deciding farm compensation
In the movie Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise, as an agent, represents Cuba Gooding Jr., a football star looking to secure a new contract. Gooding wants to be highly paid and expresses his expectations with his “show me the money” routine. It’s a little less glamorous in real life. In a farm business, the owners, managers […] Read more
Capital budgeting illuminates implications of buying decisions
Budgeting often focusses mainly on cash flow to ensure enough money is available to keep the operation running. A farm starved for cash can be stressful, which can lead to undesirable outcomes. As a result, it’s important to work through a budgeting exercise and align cash inflow and outflow. Capital budgeting is one of the […] Read more
Land purchase decisions should be part of long-term plan
There can be much variability in land prices depending on location, but one trend is clear — it’s becoming more expensive. Will the trend continue? How high will land prices get? There are lots of opinions, but obviously nobody knows for sure. The question is relevant to buyers and sellers. The recent gains have triggered […] Read more
Retiring generation must prepare, communicate
Knowing how to refer to the generation that will be leaving the business can be a bit awkward. The older generation? Senior generation? Seasoned generation? Whatever the descriptor, it is critical early on in the planning process for the retiring generation to document initial thoughts on retirement and succession. The retiring generation’s thoughts about the […] Read more
Fixed costs: managing expenses to maximize returns
Farmers should think about how to better manage their fixed costs to achieve a better bottom line result. Costs, or expenses, associated with running a farm are often recorded as variable and fixed. Variable expenses can be further categorized as being production and operating expenses. The goal is to maximize profit or net income. This […] Read more
Common mistakes when managing farm’s finances
Financial management is not that interesting for many farmers. It can at times be confusing and difficult to understand. However, financial management is requiring more attention as the business of agriculture evolves and farms advance. All farmers have their own management skills, but many producers, as with other managers, fall into the category of “room […] Read more
What if there is no successor to take over the family farm?
Many farm families are faced with the prospect that none of the children are interested in farming. They can be interested in the farm, but not in farming. In the past, the common practice when a family had no successor was to sell the farm. While this is still an option and a reality, other […] Read more
