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Farmers encouraged to make a budget

Making a budget is something many farmers often avoid.

IntelliFarm President Brian Voth says even though it's unpopular, sitting down and making a budget is important for your farm.

"Honestly in the last year, year and a half, we could get away without doing a budget because basically we're in a situation where you couldn't not make money. As long as you actually had a crop or some version of a crop. The problem is this last year and half or two years is going to have lasting impacts on farms decisions going forward. Especially because with making a lot of money comes upgrading equipment, buying land, etcetera and things like this have trailing effects over the next five, ten, fifteen years," he explained. "The problem is, if farms are making these decisions and doing this because it made sense only the way things looked in the last year, these are the decisions that end up being the detriment of farms longer term because they can't cash flow, they can't live with the decisions they've made when things were really good, when things go back to normal or back to average, whatever you want to call it."

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Alberta Honey: A Day at Molenkamp Honey Farms

Video: Alberta Honey: A Day at Molenkamp Honey Farms

When was the last time you read the label on your honey?

We spent a day at Molenkamp Honey Farms with Michael Molenkamp, who has been keeping bees for 17 seasons and runs three to four thousand hives. In mid-September, he was finishing treatments and getting his bees ready for winter, and he walked us through how Alberta honey gets made.

Alberta has just 150 commercial beekeepers running 300,000 colonies, and together they produce 40% of Canada’s honey. Long summer days and golden canola fields give Alberta honey a light flavour that’s hard to match anywhere else.

Molenkamp calls Alberta beekeepers some of the most resilient farmers he knows. There’s plenty of Alberta honey to go around, but a lot on our shelves isn’t from here, so his ask is simple. Give the label a second look and choose honey made by Alberta beekeepers, or buy straight from a beekeeper near you.