When farming meets good business practices, the result is a highly successful and sustainable business for generations to come.  

In this episode of GTF, Terry and his sidekick, Holden, Terry's son, have a chat with Heather Watson, Executive Director at Farm Management Canada ( "FMC"), and Jorg Zimmermann, Chief Operations Officer at Farm Business Management at FMC to talk about FMC's mission to provide farmers leading-edge resources, information, and tools to support farm business success and talk about the importance of implementing strong business practices in farming. 

In this episode, you will learn: 

• The importance of introducing good business practices to grow and be profitable in farming.
• The FMC's holistic approach to the farming business that creates a healthy and sustainable work environment for farmers.
• How to make the business side of farming "sexier."
• Why management gives farmers a bigger competitive edge than any other factor in farming.
• The importance of setting financial and management goals.

Find more information about FMC here: https://fmc-gac.com/

And if you want to be part of the Growing the Future community make sure to say hi on social at: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-aberhart-b36203b6/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growingthefuturepodcast/

Say hi to Dan: https://www.instagram.com/aberhartdan/

Also, don't forget to share this episode with your fellow Growing the Future trailblazers and subscribe to the podcast. 

Become a Growing the Future Insider and be the first one to be informed about podcast releases a what's the latest in our community by going to http://growingthefuturepodcast.ca. 

In this episode of Growing the Future podcast, Dan interviews one of his mentors and entrepreneur Jedi Joe Dales. Joe is the co-founder and president of Agri & Food Innovation at RH Accelerator in London, Ontario, Canada. Joe is also the co-founder of Farms.com Ltd. and AdCareers.com. Both companies are the leading suppliers of innovative solutions to farmers, agriculture, and food companies worldwide.

Joe's mission is to help farmers be more profitable and productive by encouraging them to adopt innovative practices.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Joe's beginnings as an entrepreneur and how he saw innovation as an opportunity to grow his business.
• Joe's best entrepreneurial lessons from 20 years of experience delivering knowledge, innovative information, products, and services for the global agriculture and food industry with farms.com and Better Farming Magazine.
• Joe's best advice to new entrepreneurs in the agricultural business.

And if you want to be part of the Growing the Future community make sure to say hi on social at: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-aberhart-b36203b6/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growingthefuturepodcast/

Say hi to Dan: https://www.instagram.com/aberhartdan/

Also, don't forget to share this episode with your fellow Growing the Future trailblazers and subscribe to the podcast. 

Become a Growing the Future Insider and be the first one to be informed about podcast releases a what's the latest in our community by going to http://growingthefuturepodcast.ca. 

“It's just like farming. I mean, um, people will say to me often, like, why are farmers should grouchy and pessimistic all the time? And that's not it, they're not pessimistic. They're simply preventing insanity by talking through scenarios of possible downside.”

"And that brings a fundamental point and agriculture. You have to have the basic science and you have to have somebody that takes that to the farm gate. And mine was, was the latter, but I've always had great respect and communication with other people.

A lot of things I've been able to do just because there was somebody behind me that knew the basics better than I did"  - Les Henry (7:00)

Dan Breaks this episode up into 3 parts:

• The Prodigal Son
• How Carbon Tax launched my career in Politics by Jake Ayer
• The Hunger Games: Trumping Trudeau

 "and you know, that, that's kind of the thing. So I said, I was thinking about that. It's like, like, which foot do I put?

You know, which camp do I put my foot into? And I have my feet perpetually in more than one camp. It's a weird situation. I'm, I'm a farmer, I'm a farm boy. I grew up on the farm. I love farming. I love farmers. I love the farming industry. I like crops. I like everything about it and yet I also live in the inner city and I see all the issues that they have.

And those are also mine, you know? And so we started a community garden. It's an organic community garden. It is, uh, you know, I commute, I'm a cycling advocate. I'm a, I'm an advocate for things that are important to my community, right. And my community happens to be the inner city."

- Tom Wolf [09:57-10:24] 

What we learned from this episode?

• Antara Agronomy facilitates a group of farmers leading the industry by working with agronomist to experiment, collect data, and grow the future of agriculture
• When farmers drive by, you better believe they are watching what Antara Agronomy is doing on their neighbor’s land
• Antara Agronomy talks about their benchmarking program, looking at trends to put into trail to better understand the land in the Red River Valley

• 01:20 – 2:38 About Tiffany
• 03:53 – 07:12 From Ag Professional to Farm Mom
• 07:13 - 10:59 Natalie’s Diagnosis
• 11:18 - 15:27 Natalie on the Farm
• 15:28 - 16:49 Leaving the Farm
• 16:50 - 31:15 Traveling during COVID-19
• 31:15 - 33:48 Quarantine on the Farm
• 33:48 - 37:00 The Lucky 2%
• 37:01 - 38:27 A Community for Parents
• 38:40 - 46:18 Natalie’s Resilience 

• Dan and Jocelyn talk about the big picture in farming
• Jocelyn's thoughts about soil health as a buzzword
• The importance of a family farm and sustainable ag
• Conversations Jocelyn has with farmers to advise on the future of their farms
• Will Millennials start to care about where their food comes from down to the soil?