Reading Time: 5 minutes You’ve worked hard your whole life and lived within your means. Now, you want your estate to help the future generation succeed — not create problems or heartache for your family. But if you want your estate to create a legacy of positivity, you’ll have to proactively communicate your wishes through an estate plan. Like […] Read more
How to talk about your farm succession estate plans
Summer Series: Estate planning is never easy — and more difficult still is the conversations you need to have with your family. But these conversations can be a great opportunity to teach the next generation about money, family relationships and how to make decisions together
Succession on the farm: Where to begin?
Summer Series: Thinking of farm transition as a short-term, quick deal that we must get right because we only get one chance can prevent us from even starting the process — and starting it off right
Reading Time: 3 minutes I recently polled farm managers about what big projects they were planning for this year. Half the respondents said succession was a priority; however, many indicated that they don’t know where to start. I look at it like this: if you’ve taken your child to the field, or they work alongside you, then you have […] Read more
Finding the right peer group for you
The right peer group can be a great way to gain insight into your business numbers and your management options. But where do you find that ‘right’ group?
Reading Time: 8 minutes Peer groups are quickly taking on a new life in Canadian agriculture. But these are different groups today, about as different from the coffee gang at your nearby Tim’s as the NHL is from the local old-timers’ league. There are still multiple types of these groups, focusing on financial or business management, perhaps, or succession, […] Read more
Farm transfer tax treatment bill now law, feds say
Government to add amendments against tax loopholes
Reading Time: 3 minutes Despite a previous statement from her ministry, Canada’s finance minister says a bill standardizing the tax treatment of farm transfers is now officially on the books. However, while Bill C-208 is now in federal tax law, further amendments are en route to plug legal loopholes the bill may have opened. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on […] Read more
Parliament rises as farm succession bill passes
Manitoba MP's private member's bill clears Senate
Reading Time: 3 minutes With the possibility of a fall election looming, MPs rose from the House of Commons on Wednesday, marking the end to a parliamentary session featuring a handful of laws impacting agriculture. Brandon-Souris MP Larry Maguire saw his private member’s bill, aimed at lowering taxes on the sales of farms and other small businesses, pass in […] Read more
Family farms: Recognition + Appreciation > Return on Assets
AME Management: Keep track of good old-fashioned sweat equity
Reading Time: 3 minutes Income is important in a multi-generational farm business, but sometimes the key that actually unlocks a farm’s prosperity has more to do with long-term clarity and its members’ sense of opportunity. Therefore, if you are the second generation (SG), you must ask yourself: “Do I have a career path to ownership? Or am I just […] Read more
The next farm generation steps up
On this farm, transition planning made real gains once the younger generation learned how to take their role in the process
Reading Time: 11 minutes Alec Boekhoven had turned over at 2 a.m., fretting about ways to reduce feed costs on his family’s 600-sow farrow-to-finish operation. Eventually he drifted off on the couch, which is where his son Evan discovered him and woke him up early. It’s why Alec brought his three-year-old with him to do chores, and it also […] Read more
Get off to a better start with farm succession
Here’s advice from Merle Good on how to let the business lead the conversation toward your farm succession plan
Reading Time: 6 minutes John F. Kennedy’s historic words, “… ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” may also contain the wisdom needed to solve the complexities of today’s family farm successions. Too many young men and women are starting their discussions about the path to farm succession by […] Read more
One Ontario family’s joint path to farm succession
“Succession planning here is like hitting a moving target,” says Jim McGregor, but it’s also the family’s greatest opportunity
Reading Time: 8 minutes A mile from the Ottawa River, the McGregor family has lived and farmed, and they have loved and built for five generations, to the point where their produce business has mushroomed to 15 stands, a pick-your-own business and four farmers’ markets. Theirs is a story about embracing change, and about how, in the midst of […] Read more
Taking the first steps in succession planning
Reading Time: 2 minutes Are you getting more and more convinced that it’s time for succession planning for your own farm? If so, here are some thoughts from the experts on how to get started, beginning with the most important question of all: What does our retirement look like? “The retiring couple has to have a focused discussion on […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
