Reading Time: 7 minutes Here’s an unpopular question. When are you going to retire from the farm? This is often a taboo topic because it’s hard to know when you’ll be ready, and just as hard, if not harder, to know what it means to retire. To a farmer, retirement could read like a death sentence. Or does it […] Read more
The way to retire
Especially on the farm, planning for a happy retirement really does a make a difference
Keep the farm or sell?
Mom and Dad want to retire. What’s the smart move? Should you keep the land for the family, or sell and invest?
Reading Time: 4 minutes As farming parents prepare to retire, conflicting viewpoints can arise with their offspring over keeping the land or selling it. What’s the right way to go? Deciding whether to retain versus divesting the family farm may be the biggest decision that any farm family will ever have to undertake. There’s no right or wrong answer, […] Read more
Don’t retire — ‘rewire’
Retirement can be rich and rewarding. Or it can be deadly dull. The difference may be whether you connect with new resources and advisors
Reading Time: 7 minutes Some people can’t wait to retire. They have plans to replace the daily grind with more volunteering, more travel, more golf, more time with the grandkids, more time at the cottage, or whatever it may be that they don’t have the time to do now. But for others the thought of retirement is terrifying because […] Read more
The retiring farmer
In the dictionary, to be “retiring” means to bow silently out. Now, one of North America’s top farm retirement experts, shares why it’s the wrong strategy for our older farmers
Reading Time: 6 minutes Retirement can be a daunting prospect for nearly everyone, especially if they have had a meaningful career. Still, the adjustment in agriculture really is more acute than in many other sectors. “In agriculture, we have the added problem of being tied closely to the land,” says Iowa psychologist, speaker, author and farmer Dr. Michael Rosmann. […] Read more
Selling the corporate farm
Darren and Carmen Sterling made the hard decision. 2019 would be their last crop. Then they would retire. But that’s when the real work began
Reading Time: 10 minutes When we talk about Canada’s aging farm owners, we generally talk about how best to pass the agricultural torch to sons and daughters or, more recently, about creative contortions to move the farm into the future with those who are not family — in short, succession planning. But is it still called succession when there […] Read more
Farm hobby
Non-farmers earn smiles and sometimes smirks when they move to the country to hobby farm, but their basic idea is sound. A hobby is great for all of us, especially as we age
Reading Time: 8 minutes It’s no surprise that active farmers say they don’t have time for hobbies or outside interests, especially if they’ve also got young families. But as the years go by, the price begins to show, both in quality of life and also — as more and more research shows — in the quality of your decision-making […] Read more
Winding down: How will Canada’s aging farmers sell their land?
As the Besser family discovered, it can pay to play the long game
Reading Time: 5 minutes In 2011, Howard and Jannette Besser found themselves at a crossroads. The pair, who farmed 3,000 acres near Plumas, Man., had reached their 50th birthdays, their sons were not interested in farming, and they could see they’d have to start purchasing bigger, newer equipment if they wanted to carry on. “We decided to step out,” […] Read more
Family Through Succession: Aligning the Hunter family vision
"In the end, we all want the same thing,” Bruce says. “I just don’t see how we can make everyone happy.”
Reading Time: 7 minutes Last month, our first article introduced the Hunter family and their journey through farm succession. The Hunters aren’t a real family; you won’t find them in a phone book. But they are real in that they’re based on our real-life experience consulting with farm families. You’ll find families like the Hunters across the country. Through […] Read more
Getting inside a retiring farmer’s head
Knowing the questions that your older neighbours are asking themselves as they start winding down their farms could give you the inside track
Reading Time: 9 minutes Mom and Dad just had coffee with their neighbour, talking about how it’s time to start preparing for retirement. Not just thinking about it, but actually doing it. They’re only a fenceline apart, but they’re in very different situations, though, which for farmers in the area who want to expand could make all the difference. […] Read more
Retired farmers show they have a lifetime to share
Support for these farmers stopped the moment they left the farm, until Jill Rennie developed this innovative dementia support group
Reading Time: 8 minutes Retiring from the farm can have a massive impact on farmers’ mental and physical health. It can seem the lucky ones are those who can still live on the farm site, do a few odd jobs, run some errands or help out at busy times. Indeed, the ones who end up moving away from the […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
