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For Mark and Sally Benard, their farm is not just about a business opportunity, but a big picture philosophy. “Both need to be an equal priority when in organic production,” says Sally from their Prince Edward Island farm located between Summerside and Charlottetown....
Unique healthy apple snacks to be produced in new Ontario processing facility. Martin’s Family Fruit Farm of Waterloo, Ontario has grown to become one of the larger growers, packers, and shippers of apples in Canada over the past 40 years. They grow their own apples...
To grow the farming business you have today, you’ve invested years of your life and the bulk of your financial assets. But sooner or later, it’s inevitable that someone other than you will own and run your farm. Perhaps you’ll transfer your operation...
Before he started succession planning, Kevin Olson first got pretty good at avoiding it. “The hardest part is getting started,” says the 50-year-old farmer from Plenty, Sask. “It’s easy to talk about it in generalities, but then you all kinda go back and start working...
The statistics suggest one story. Young farmers tell another. The latest Census of Agriculture found the number of young farmers continues to plunge – with the percentage of farm operators under age 35 down nearly 60 per cent in the last two decades (8.2% in 2011...
A lifetime in farming brings perspective. Two veteran farmers, Jean-Guy Vincent and Garry Meier, share theirs – one has some advice for young people entering farming while the other offers some thoughts for those passing on their operations. After 41 years in the hog...
When the Keddy family first began succession planning, their advisor had a grim warning. “We sat down with our accountant who told us there was a study that found only 1 in 12 first-generation farms are successfully transferred,” says Philip Keddy, who with parents...
Justin Beck has one big tip for beginning farmers: If you want to succeed on the family farm, get away from it. “I would definitely suggest that you go work someplace else for a bit,” says the 26-year-old. “First, it’s going to help you decide whether farming is...
40 cows, 40 acres and 40 000 broilers. That was what Peter and Nicole Tuytel of Elmbridge Farms in Chilliwack, British Columbia started with in 1996. The problem with this small farm was the fact the Tuytel’s didn’t see any land near by coming up for sale, the dairy...
Pat Dunphy didn’t take a ‘kid takes over from dad’ route into agriculture. But the PEI farmer’s unconventional career path may soon be more common. Dunphy earns a salary running a farm owned by outside investors while slowly building up his own operation on the side....
