Farm family businesses are very different from any other family-owned business.
Whether you compare it to a construction company, hardware store, landscaping business, or law firm, it’s just different.
A farm is a living and breathing entity.
It grows crops, animals, and people. A farm feeds, clothes, and houses a family for years and years, continuously, with no breaks.
The farm even has its own seat at the table, all the tables in fact. At the boardroom table, breakroom table, and kitchen table.
Have you noticed this? The farm even sits at the head of every table. (Gosh, if the farm only knew the power that it has.)
A couple of things come to mind as I ponder why.
First of all, farm businesses have longevity. Spanning hundreds of years, generation after generation, the actual farm itself has been sitting at the table longer than anyone.
It has weathered all the financial ups and downs, droughts, blights, and blizzards. Birth and death, tear-downs and building projects. All the storms.
Yet it stays, constant and vigilant, growing, changing…breathing.
Second, there is family involvement from the bottom to the top; 2-year-olds ride in tractors with their parents, and they learn every inch of the land. While at the same time, grandfathers are trying desperately to catch up and grasp the latest technology so they can continue to plant corn and mow hay in their fields until their very last day on this earth.
It’s love.
Each end of the spectrum has a different connection to the farm business, which is deeply rooted and cannot be taken away.
I see this in my children, their love of the land. Their love of the farm business.
To them, the farm is very much alive and breathing. When they come home from college, they can’t wait to go see what’s going on at the farm. The projects, the people, the bunks, the cows. Summer vacation has always meant fieldwork, farm business decisions, and conversations.
They have been a part of all of them!
It’s odd and beautiful all at the same time.
Most of us have felt, at one time or another, that “the farm” has more power than anything else. At times, it can feel as if the farm is more important than the individuals running it every day. This can be especially the case when you are a young in-law. You learn, though, and definitely appreciate it as you see your family thrive.
To keep things in perspective, it’s not the farm, it’s the people running it. For various reasons, it’s the people who allow the farm to become so large that it can shackle them, and thus cripple the entire farm business.
As a result, decisions can be stalled, transitions smothered, and progress stopped.
It’s usually a fear of losing the farm and embracing the changes necessary to keep it going, which fuels this problem. The “farm’s” seat at the table becomes too large and disproportionate in size to all of the individuals. Until one day, when it can’t fit at the table anymore, the farm business fails, and the family disperses.
A solution: Succession planning. One of the primary reasons families lose their farm businesses is a lack of succession planning.
Succession plans create the guardrails to keep everyone and everything in perspective. It’s a map drawn to manage the expected and unexpected.
Consider: The succession plan protects the farm’s seat at the table. It’s the policy and the framework built to usher in the next generation in a timely, detailed, and intentional way. As our own farm business prepares for the next crop of kids, there is a plan in place. A working plan, constantly tended to.
Started with my children’s grandparents, father, and uncles, they laid the foundation for buy-in, transition, and buy-out. For almost 30 years, it has evolved to help the business through divorce, partner changes, land acquisitions, and a new generation.
Constantly under scrutiny, tweaked, and discussed, it’s a working plan. It’s a map to go to when times get chaotic during change.
The plan provides the family with peace of mind, both financially and emotionally.
It takes time and thought, and professionals to guide us through the process.
The time is now. Most of you are either farming or interacting with farm families every day. You know the businesses that need to get planning, and those that have a plan solidly in place.
You don’t have to get it right or know how to do it. You just have to get it going.
For the sake of your family…and the sake of the farm.
Written by Kate Ziehm, President of Morning Ag Clips
Nicole Martinez says
This was a very thoughtful article. Many family farms focus so much on daily operations that long-term planning often gets delayed. Succession planning is not always an easy conversation, but it’s one of the most important steps for protecting both the business and family relationships. Thanks for highlighting such an important topic for the farming community.