Reading Time: 2 minutes Several articles in our May/June issue of Country Guide examine what may be the toughest question of all. Does your farm’s next generation have what it’s going to take to succeed in 2050? Fortunately, science can help. I’ve suggested before in this space that as farms continue their likely evolution in asset value and in […] Read more
Editor’s Note: Six ingredients of an ideal farm successor
Legal insights into transition planning
Today it’s getting even more critical to keep up with your legal documents all through your business planning and succession discussions
Reading Time: 9 minutes At 45,000 sq. feet the new dairy pack barn is impressive, especially the way it captures the spirit of hope that fills the McCorquodale family at Embro, Ont. With the next generation waiting in the wings, their barn represents their shared belief in their future, complete with robotic milking system and the latest in cow-comfort […] Read more
Let your kids see how you mind your farm’s business
Here’s where the farm succession process really starts
Reading Time: 5 minutes If you’re close to retirement, you may be getting ready to succeed the farm to your children. Or, if you’re younger, you’ll be thinking about what is going to happen to the farm when it’s your turn to retire. In either scenario, your family, your children and the business itself will likely be intermingling, which […] Read more
Transition to better communication
How better succession planning can lead to better decision-making and less conflict
Reading Time: 8 minutes Too many times, farm succession planning starts with a series of useless, dead-end and sometimes volatile meetings. Someone erupts into tears, someone else mutters some nasty words in anger and frustration and all our hopes crash in flames. No wonder we are afraid of stirring up this toxic mess of emotions. We’re supposed to be […] Read more
Success story
A new survey shows our farmers actually are finding ways to transition their farms to the next generation
Reading Time: 6 minutes There’s encouraging news from a fresh survey of multi-generational farms in Canada and the U.S. Amid all the debate that the 2016 ag census has generated about whether farmers are actually getting serious about Canada’s huge farm succession challenge, this survey shows that many farms are getting on with the job just fine, thanks. No […] Read more
Which joint venture will work for you?
AME Management: Building a business structure that works for your farm
Reading Time: 6 minutes The whole world acknowledges the brilliance of Albert Einstein. He is famous for his discoveries about relativity and the pull of gravity, and for his equation E=mc2, which says that the increased relativistic mass (m) of a body times the speed of light squared (c 2) is equal to the kinetic energy (E) of that […] Read more
In the deep end
Sarah Jackson had been planning for her farming future since she was 17 years old, knowing her father Tom would be working right alongside her. So when he died suddenly eight months ago, she was thrown into a maelstrom. It’s an old story in agriculture, but because of new attitudes and modern connections, it ends with some surprising twists
Reading Time: 10 minutes “We left the hospital, and went to tell my grandmother he had died, then I came home and loaded trucks at two in the morning,” says Jackson. Neighbours rushed to help, but “Dad hadn’t even been dead for four hours and I had no choice but to keep farming.” Hard as it was at the […] Read more
Their joint venture
The way Doyle Wiebe and Mark Thompson work together is beginning to look like the future for a big chunk of Canada’s farms, especially in succession
Reading Time: 10 minutes Canada’s farmers are designing ever more creative business arrangements to deal with the scarcity of available land and with the capital requirements for farm expansion, diversification and succession. Now Saskatchewan producer Doyle Wiebe has developed and implemented a joint venture agreement on his farm near Langham, Sask., that may prove one of the most unique […] Read more
Finding a way to say ‘Yes’
Saying ‘no’ to a multi-generation corporation has helped Richard and Nicole Brousseau find their own route toward succession, with a clear focus on family
Reading Time: 8 minutes The road to farm succession can have many twists and turns. And every farm is unique, so it can be easy to lose your way in all the options, or to fall into somebody else’s cookie-cutter solution. Yet being true to your own business and family needs should always come first, as the Brousseau family […] Read more
Growing professional
Across the country, young farmers like Holly White and Kent Sereda are building respect for a new generation of business skills
Reading Time: 9 minutes Newlyweds Holly White and Kent Sereda were already quite good at tackling what you might call their legal due diligence, updating their wills and preparing marital agreements. Then they realized they should go even further. This was the right time, they decided, to review the whole succession plan for the fourth-generation family farm that they […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
