SWIFT CURRENT, Sask. — Optimistic, pumped, nervous, excited, scared, overwhelmed, anxious — these words appeared on the screen as a recent Farm Credit Canada event for young farmers began.
They were using an electronic audience interaction tool to answer this question: how are you feeling about the future of the farm and your role within it?
Some of the other answers were a bit more colourful, such as just giv’er, depends how the VLTs pay out this afternoon and Jesus take the wheel.
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Farming is always a gamble, and there is praying involved, but is just giv’er a strategy for the future?
Possibly.
Many of the attendees were already involved in family farms or navigating their way through transition. They clearly want to farm and were at the meeting to learn about business planning, succession, stress and other topics. Some had been back on the farm for 10 years or more.
They learned the importance of writing down a farm business plan, holding regular meetings and writing a will.
It all sounds good, but no one has time to do all that, one attendee remarked. As well, suggesting a family meeting to discuss farm management would go over like the proverbial lead balloon.
Still, the message was clear from presenters throughout the day. Communication among family members or employer and employees is critical to farm success.
Everyone involved approaches the business from a different perspective and makes decisions accordingly.
“You have to be able to consider the other people that are impacted on your farm by the decision that you’re making,” said Erin Cote Blaquiere during her Farm Management Canada presentation.
When she asked what was stopping the participants from implementing formal management plans on their farms, the answers included power struggles and not wanting to upset others.
“We’ve done it this way for 80 years. Why change now?”
“Time.”
“Dad.”
Maybe those answers underscore the need to have those meetings and write things down.
The speakers also emphasized the need for a transition plan. Farm succession, compared to selling any other type of business, is a difficult, emotional process that can open the door to a lot of tension and tears.
The saying goes that back in the 1980s, parents passed on the farm to their least favourite child. Today, the average farm is worth millions of dollars and the non-farming child likely wants a share.
Dividing a farm fairly doesn’t meant it will be done equally, however, and making sure everyone is on the same, written page before transition day seems like a good plan.
Karen Briere is a reporter with the Western Producer.
