New free farm business planning program available for Cdn. farmers

Jan 19, 2022

The University of Guelph is offering the program

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

A new free program is available for Canadian farmers to help them with multiple facets of operating a farm business.

The University of Guelph (U of G) with support from Farm Credit Canada and Royal Bank of Canada, created the Foundations in Agricultural Management program.

The online certificate program, which opened for registrations Jan. 17, is made up of eight 20-minute video modules featuring U of G professors discussing various topics including business planning basics, human resources, risk management and mental health.

“Everyone who has been involved sees the value in this for Canadian agriculture and how we can support Canadian farms and farm families,” Dr. John Cranfield, associate dean of external relations at the U of G’s Ontario Agricultural College, told Farms.com.

The modules and their instructors are as follows:

Module	Instructor
1. Business Planning & Strategy	Dr. Mike von Massow
2. Financial Literacy I	Dr. Richard Vyn
3. Financial Literacy II	Ken McEwan
4. Managing Your Most Valuable Asset - Your People	Dr. Sara Mann
5. Risk Management	Dr. Getu Hailu
6. Family Farm Transition Planning I	Dr. Alfons Weersink
7. Family Farm Transition Planning II	Dr. Julia Christensen Hughes
8. Managing Mental Health & Building Resilience	Dr. Andria Jones-Bitton

The program is open to all farmers across Canada and there is a French version available.

The U of G will offer the course four times this year:

January to March
April to June
July to September
October to December

Participants study the modules at their own pace and must complete a short quiz before starting the next one.

The goal of the program is to help Canadian farmers make better agribusiness decisions.

What that means depends on the individual operation, Cranfield said.

“The first step to making a better business decision is to have a plan,” he said. “Our first module teaches the basics of business planning. It’s not just about doing things but looking at what the effects of those actions are. But if you’re a farm with employees, that plan might be different. So that’s where our human resource management module would be ideal.”

The last module in the program focuses on mental health and is delivered by Dr. Andria Jones-Bitton, who has been studying mental health in the ag community since 2017.

Placing the mental health module at the end was a conscious decision, Cranfield said.

“Some of the conversations brought up in the other modules may be uncomfortable,” he said. “We provide tools and resources in the mental health module to help farmers understand that it’s okay not to be okay and it’s okay to need help.”

Video: The Investment Opportunities of Industrial Hemp

The fledgling U.S. hemp industry is decades behind countries like Canada, France and China, but according to impact investor and this week’s podcast guest, Pierre Berard, it could flourish into a $2.2 billion industry by 2030 and create thousands of jobs.

To reach its potential, what the hemp industry needs most right now, Berard said, is capital investment.

Last month, Berard published a report titled “Seeing the U.S. Industrial Hemp Opportunity — A Pioneering Venture for Investors and Corporations Driven by Environmental, Social and Financial Concerns” in which he lays out the case for investment.

It’s as if Berard, with this report, is waving a giant flag, trying to attract the eyes of investors, saying, “Look over here. Look at all this opportunity.”

Berard likens the burgeoning American hemp industry to a developing country.

“There is no capital. People don’t want to finance. This is too risky. And I was like, OK, this sounds like something for me,” he said.

As an impact investor who manages funds specializing in agro-processing companies, Berard now has his sights set on the U.S. hemp industry, which he believes has great economic value as well as social and environmental benefits.

He spent many years developing investment in the agriculture infrastructure of developing countries in Latin America and Africa, and said the hemp industry feels similar.

“It is very nascent and it is a very fragmented sector. You have pioneers and trailblazers inventing or reinventing the field after 80 years of prohibition,” he said. “So I feel very familiar with this context.”

On this week’s hemp podcast, Berard talks about the report and the opportunities available to investors in the feed, fiber and food sectors of the hemp industry.

Building an industry around an agricultural commodity takes time, he said. According to the report, “The soybean industry took about 50 years to become firmly established, from the first USDA imports in 1898 to the U.S. being the top worldwide producer in the 1950s.”

Berard has a plan to accelerate the growth of the hemp industry and sees a four-pillar approach to attract investment.

First, he said, the foundation of the industry is the relationship between farmers and processors at the local level.

Second, he said the industry needs what he calls a “federating body” that will represent it, foster markets and innovations, and reduce risk for its members and investors.

The third pillar is “collaboration with corporations that aim to secure or diversify their supply chains with sustainable products and enhance their ESG credentials. This will be key to funding the industry and creating markets,” he said.

The fourth pillar is investment. Lots of it. Over $1.6 billion over seven years. This money will come from government, corporations, individual investors, and philanthropic donors.

The 75-page report goes into detail about the hemp industry, its environmental and social impact, and the opportunities available to investors.

Read the report here: Seeing the U.S. Industrial Hemp Opportunity

Also on this episode, we check in with hemp and bison farmer Herb Grove from Brush Mountain Bison in Centre County, PA, where he grew 50 acres of hemp grain. We’ll hear about harvest and dry down and crushing the seed for oil and cake.