Schools typically start at 2:30pm on a Sunday afternoon (Day 1) and conclude at noon the following Saturday (Day 7), covering all aspects of ranching.

The Ranching For Profit School is the business school of the livestock industry. Expert instructors will help you find the breakthroughs you’ve been looking for to increase profit, improve the health of the land, improve the relationships in your business and increase your satisfaction with your ranch.

Peter Katona will discuss the growth of the local food movement in Ontario and Foodlink’s experience in connecting concerned consumers directly with farms and value added products in Waterloo Region. He will also cover challenges in building long-term sustainability for an organization/movement and also some of the future challenges including the fragmentation of the “local food movement”, the potential for too many “local brands” and claims and the necessity of the local food movement.

Value chain management (VCM) is a purposeful strategy that enables business – whether a farm, a processor, a retailer, or an input supplier –to strengthen their competitive advantage through establishing closely-aligned strategic relationships with other businesses involved in supplying an end product to con-sumers. While VCM is a business approach that is not well understood by the majority of the agricultural and agri-food industry, it is a business strategy that is being used with increasingly regularity by farmers and agri-food businesses to get an edge over their competitors.

Cap and trade systems will ultimately place value on carbon, creating market incentives for those that can sequester, mitigate or create renewable forms of this basic element. The pricing of carbon will redefine farms and what is considered farm production, providing rural Canada access to new income streams in the green economy.

The program will feature high profile speakers who will share their perspectives and provide an outlook on the dairy industry, both at home and abroad. The meeting will include the business component of the BC Milk Marketing Board AGM and the Fall Producer Meetings. The stunning venue and exciting social events are sure to make BC’s Dairy Industry Conference a must attend event!
RSVP by October 26th.

Participants will:
• Learn to identify appropriate retailers and their characteristics
• Study a profile of the current retail market environment
• Study case examples to learn how to successfully approach retailers
• Develop a suitable approach to a selected retailer
• Be part of a compelling team presentation to a retailer

Anyone who has ever been sick knows that their health is worth their weight in gold, and that it is one of life’s most wonderful gifts, because money can’t buy health. Once we have it, we must maintain it and most of all make it a major priority, because the prosperity of a farm goes only as far as the health of he or she who maintains it.

Through innovation and new technologies global agriculture is being transformed. Innovation is providing farmers with additional tools to build upon their commitment to sustainability and stewardship. Agriculture is continuing to evolve to address today’s challenges and to minimize agriculture’s footprint on the environment. From increasing yields, to using less water, to ensuring crops are disease and drought resistant, agriculture is providing sustainable benefits to Canadians, the environment and the overall Canadian economy. In order to be truly successful, agriculture, government and industry must work together to create an innovative, prosperous, sustainable agriculture sector to benefit the millions of consumers and the environment in which we live. This year’s conference will remind us that our future prosperity depends on the entire agricultural value chain working together to establish Canada as a world leader in developing new products and new solutions to challenges in the production of food, energy, and industrial products; both here in Canada and around the world.

In this presentation, Normand Mousseau will demonstrate the different elements which allow us to understand current energy issues, from the increase of oil prices to the uncertainty towards the future of methane tankers, considering the impact of Alberta’s bituminous sands and the relationship between energy and the agricultural world.

We can prevent many daily aggravations and family business catastrophes if we learn from the mistakes of others. This eye-opening webinar will highlight the stupid things families do that break up their business. We will discuss in-laws and out-laws, off-site family and estates, daily communications and important meetings. From conversations to contracts, from assumptions to clarification, from complaints to celebrations, it's time to open eyes and save fighting on the way to the funeral home.

Schools typically start at 2:30pm on a Sunday afternoon (Day 1) and conclude at noon the following Saturday (Day 7), covering all aspects of ranching.

The Ranching For Profit School is the business school of the livestock industry. Expert instructors will help you find the breakthroughs you’ve been looking for to increase profit, improve the health of the land, improve the relationships in your business and increase your satisfaction with your ranch.

This webinar provides an update of the performance of the Canadian Agriculture sector in recent years, including an assessment of the impact of the current global financial crisis. The performance of Canadian farmers and producers in individual provinces are compared with the performance of US farmers, showing that Canadian farmers are much more over capitalized and debt burdened than US farmers. Canadian farmers now have over 6 times more debt and 3.7 times more equity capital invested per dollar of farm income earned than our US counterparts, and are 6 times more vulnerable to rising interest rates.

Learn how successful agritourism operators in North America have grown their businesses by selling their products and offering unique experiences directly to the public. How do you capture new sales and build loyalty for future business with existing customers? What are the marketing basics that you should never forget? How do you understand your customer’s needs and exceed them? We’ll present the top ten ways to promote your farm and grow your business.

A registration fee of $25 will cover the cost of lunch, and classroom materials.

A registration fee of $25 will cover the cost of lunch, and classroom materials.

A registration fee of $25 will cover the cost of lunch, and classroom materials.

A registration fee of $25 will cover the cost of lunch, and classroom materials.

As I travel across Canada, I can’t help but get excited about all the new value adding initiatives that I see farmers undertaking. Some are very modest initiatives, while others are much grander in scheme. But, what I think is important, is that these farmers are taking action to make positive change in their lives verses waiting for someone else to do it for them. They are actively searching for new value from what they are currently doing on the farm! Value adding isn’t the answer for every farm, but it can help many to become more sustainable for the future. This Agri-Webinar explores agricultural value adding and looks at a number of successful Agravators™ (Agra-Innovators) who are using the value adding concept to Power Up Their Farms for new profits and new opportunities for them and the next generation.

Working towards the ‘Triple-E’ sustainable agriculture business model is tricky. Like all farming it is exhausting, frustrating, rewarding, costly, and challenging in un-equal measures. Mostly however it is not dependant on outside forces, but on your will to survive and on your ability to adapt and innovate in response to the marketplace. It also continually requires you to take a very hard look at every single aspect/line of your business and what it is ‘paying you back’ for your efforts.

Brenda Schoepp will discuss beef marketing.

Organic agriculture continues to capture the attention and interest of consumers and producers alike. What are the factors driving this sustained interest and what are the trends in both production and consumption that we should be looking out for? Capturing opportunities in organic agriculture requires good research and planning like most entrepreneurial endeavours. Fortunately we have some good examples of initiatives in multiple sectors of organic to use as examples.