Columns & Production Tips

In the case of farmers such as Herb and Fred who have separate assets, there may be adverse tax consequences in transferring land from one to the other at book value.

Two brothers want to merge two farms, simplify ownership

Farm Financial Planner: Maximizing the proceeds from their estates for the benefit of charities will take some planning

By Andrew Allentuck July 24, 2024

In south-central Manitoba, two brothers who we’ll call Herb, 75 and Fred, 60, have farmed for more than 40 years. They’ve raised cattle and produced mixed grains. Neither has married and there are no children or other obvious heirs. In their four decades of farming the brothers have built up substantial off-farm assets. There’s enough non-registered […] Read more

Beef Cattle, Cattleman’s Corner, Columns

How to manage beef cow summer mineral intake

Better Bunks and Pastures: Most solutions are found with common sense and changing practices

By Peter Vitti July 23, 2024

A long time ago, I helped a producer feed loose mineral to his herd of 60 beef cows. It was at the start of summer and during their breeding season. We’d just rip open a couple of bags and pour the mineral into an old wooden crate near a full dugout of drinking water. Often, […] Read more

farm kids gathering sheaves from swath in field

Wheat & Chaff

Farm kids not immune to farm stressors

CASA on Farm Safety: New study shows risks for youths on the farm go beyond just physical well-being

By Canadian Agricultural Safety Association July 20, 2024

They say it takes a village to raise a child. And a new study is highlighting that notion when it comes to mental in farm youth, revealing that children aren’t immune to stressors on the family farm The study, from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, explores how economic stressors affect the mental health of farmers […] Read more

Columns, Practical Tips

Let’s look at the facts on pesticides

Practical Research: Chemicals found in nature aren’t intrinsically safer than the man-made options

By Ieuan Evans July 17, 2024

The May 2024 edition of Consumer Reports, published by a well-regarded U.S. not-for-profit independent organization, examined “Produce Without Pesticides.” The article carried a lead statement that some 20 per cent of the 59 fruits and vegetables in its ratings posed a high risk for pesticides. It also made the statement that some of our favourite […] Read more

Columns, Farm Life

Easing the strain of sitting

Fit to Farm: Joints in the spine can get compressed when you have to sit for long periods

By Kathlyn Hossack July 14, 2024

A common complaint that comes along with the farm lifestyle and career is back pain. Non-specific low back pain — meaning the pain has begun with no clear incidence and doesn’t have one clear cause — makes up over 80 per cent of back pain complaints. In my line of work, often it isn’t as […] Read more

Columns, Editor's column

Editor’s Rant: Thanks, Les

By Dave Bedard July 9, 2024

We begin with sad news for readers who haven’t already heard: Les Henry, a soil scientist and university professor dedicated to the improvement of Prairie farmland, and a mainstay in these pages for almost 50 years, left us on June 14 at age 83, ending a long fight with congestive heart failure. We can defer […] Read more

Columns, Global markets, Home Quarter Investing

How we choose highly profitable companies at reasonable valuations

Investing for Fun & Profit: It's both an art and a science -- but mostly science

By Herman VanGenderen June 28, 2024

In previous articles I’ve frequently mentioned the importance of selecting highly profitable companies at reasonable valuations. I’d like to illustrate with a real-life example of a switch I made in our tax-free savings accounts (TFSAs) at the start of the year. Our TFSA performance has lagged recently even though since inception they are still running […] Read more

Beef Cattle, Cattleman’s Corner, Columns

Korean beef: similar feed, but much more marbling

Better Bunks and Pastures: Hanwoo cattle are finished to higher weights than most Canadian cattle, with similar daily gains

By Peter Vitti June 27, 2024

I am going to take a month off from my regular routine. Rather than discuss the latest in Canadian beef nutrition, I am going to examine a new beef experience, almost 10,000 km west of Winnipeg, at the outskirts of Naju City in South Korea. In short order, my girlfriend and I took a two-week […] Read more

Columns, Farm Life

Great questions to uncover inheritance expectations

Seeds of Encouragement: Keeping a farm intact can complicate the process, but not insurmountably so

By Elaine Froese June 22, 2024

One of the key fears of aging farm founders is the conflict they anticipate when the farming heir has access to millions of dollars of land, and the siblings who are off to other careers do not have the same net worth opportunity in their future. Or do they? Firstly, where it is written that […] Read more

Children and youth need to be involved in conversations about farm safety —and that means being honest with them about the potential dangers on the farm.

Wheat & Chaff

“One decision changed my life”

A farm accident survivor on the need to keep farm kids safe

By Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, Erin Kelly June 20, 2024

Bailey Kemery knows how quickly a farm accident can happen and change a life forever. It was April 1994, and Kemery, who was four years old, was playing on a parked tractor-driven rototiller that was still running on her family’s grain farm near Major, Sask. Her parents were standing not too far away. When the […] Read more

GFM Network News

U.S. livestock: Cattle extend gains on improving cash prices, packer demand

U.S. grains: Soy futures slide on China demand doubts

Spain probes whether swine fever outbreak was caused by lab leak

Columns