I’ve just read David Specht’s book, The Farm Whisperer: Secrets to Preserving Families and Perpetuating Farms. It is a great, quick read of inspiring questions for farm families wanting to transition management and ownership to create a successful legacy.

In an ever-changing and fast-paced world, training and development holds an indispensable purpose for any dairy. Rapid change requires a skilled, knowledgeable workforce with employees who are adaptive, flexible and focused on future goals and objectives.

“I am trained as a natural scientist,” Marina von Keyserlingk, professor at the University of British Columbia, said. “But the more time that I’ve been working in animal welfare, I have been humbled because I don’t think I can do animal welfare research well if I don’t understand the people that are involved in all of this."

Dairy goats are growing in popularity across Canada, particularly in Ontario. Raising goats is an opportunity for new producers or seasoned producers looking to expand or try something different.

Today’s consumer is more and more interested in knowing about their food. That may include where it came from, something about the farmer or processor that produced it, specific production practices along the way, nutritional composition, etc. More than that though, they have moved beyond wanting the story of food, they want a biography.

Farmers often focus on the varying daily operations at their farm and neglect one of the most important parts – the people who work on the operation. Managing an effective dairy farm includes the leadership you bring to your team of employees.

My parents moved onto the family farm when I was 2 years old. From that time until my 20s, when I moved away to pursue my own non-farming career, I had the same neighbors. I didn’t realize how special that was until I had my own family and experienced the constant turnover of neighbors as the houses next door changed ownership.