Proudly Canadian
Proudly Canadian
Report urges farmers to get out of the coffee shop, network more, and start acting like other businesses when it comes to HR practices
When it comes to crops and livestock, Canadian farmers are top notch. But when it comes to making money, they’re all over the map, says a new report by the Conference Board of Canada. “Over half of all farming operations achieve either very high profit margins (more than 20 per cent) or very low profitOne economist says that if rural Australia were a member country of the euro zone, international financial markets would be refusing to finance the sector
The closer West Australian farmers get to seeding time, which is any time after the end of April, the more intense the debate becomes whether the eastern Wheat Belt will ever be the same again. Now there are reports of farmers abandoning their land and walking off. Enough is enough for some. The old menThe farms seem impossibly small and the challenges overwhelmingly huge, but Kenyans are creating marketing chains, improving productivity and even doing value added
Kenya’s story is a familiar one in African agriculture: Small farms, a great need for more production, and yet a high amount of post-harvest waste — often because farmers simply can’t get their product to market. But things are changing. “Kenyans need to do it themselves,” says Rien Geuze, agribusiness adviser for Agriterra, a DutchWith no funding for an executive director and a shortage of volunteers, the association in danger of folding, says its outgoing chair
The room fell quiet as outgoing chair Jennifer Morrison made her plea “not to let this organization fold” to the 40 people attending the recent annual meeting of the Farmers’ Markets Association of Manitoba Co-op Inc. “We need support from the membership,” said Morrison. “We can’t run this organization on a small volunteer board.” ButPro-industry advocacy group says consumers have ‘woken up’ and are concerned about modern livestock practices, but willing to listen to farmers’ side of the story
Farmers may have a lot of good science in their corner, but facts alone won’t restore public trust in the food system, according to the head of an industry advocacy group. “People are asking ethical questions and we’re giving them science-based answers, because we’re not comfortable talking about the ethics,” said Terry Fleck, executive director
