When fights erupt over farm succession it can be hard on everyone. Here are some tips to help with smooth transitions.
BY: Mark Halsall, writer
Most producers recognize the merits of having a sound transition plan for their farm. For many family operations, sharing farm responsibilities and decision-making between different generations can foster new ideas and innovation while also helping ensure the farm’s long-term viability and success.
While there are many reasons why transition planning makes business sense, one vital consideration isn’t about dollars and cents. It’s about how farms without a workable succession plan in place can harm everyone’s mental health and sometimes be so disruptive it tears families apart.
Elaine Froese, a longtime farm coach who also farms with her family in Boissevain, Man., says she’s sick of hearing about families fragmenting and imploding over inadequate, ill-conceived or non-existent farm succession plans.
“I don’t want to hear any more stories about brothers not talking to each other for 15 years because of how the transition plan went down,” she says.
Pulse Beat spoke to Froese and Dean Lewko, an agriculture transition specialist with Farm Credit Canada (FCC) based in Winnipeg, to get their take on mental health challenges related to farm transition planning and how farmers can turn apprehension into action.
Lewko has plenty of experience in this area, typically helping 85 to 100 producers each year with their transition plans.
“I don’t think there’s anything harder to deal with from a mental health component than a family dispute over a family farm, when people aren’t speaking and nobody knows what’s going to happen,” he says. “There’s nothing worse than finding out what the transition plan is when the will is read.”
Lewko notes people who have put in 20 or 30 years working on a family operation often have expectations around taking it over one day, sometimes based on conversations with farm founders about what might happen.
However, when transition planning is left too late or if plans change – the farm founders deciding non-farm heirs should have a bigger stake but not being clear on how that should happen, for instance – it can be crushing blow.
“You can end up with families taking each other to court,” says Lewko. “The costs just become insurmountable, and eventually the farm can end up being sold because that’s the only way the problem can be dealt with.”
Froese agrees court battles around farm succession are becoming all too common these days. “Farm litigation is exploding,” she says. “It’s one of the fastest growing practices in law.”
Sleepless Nights
Lewko says he’s talked to many clients who have spent years of sleepless nights worrying about what they see as inevitable disagreements and ugly conflicts among family members if farm succession is brought up.
“In reality, by avoiding it you’re probably doing the worst possible thing you can do to create those disagreements and problems and hardships,” he says.
Froese agrees, stating that putting off decisions around transition plans can sow strife and disharmony on family farms, which is hard on everybody.
“Procrastination is not good for your mental health, and it’s not giving people what they need,” she says.
“What people need is certainty about their future,” Froese adds. “When hope is deferred for decades […] then people start to get disenchanted and feel trapped, and they can actually get depressed.”
Froese notes that many in the next generation of farmers are well-educated, and they may opt for other agriculture career options if stresses on the family farm are too great.
“What people are finally starting to understand is that you can no longer ignore the human potential on your farm, and you can no longer keep frustrating them,” she says.
Communication Is Key
So, what’s the secret to successful farm transition planning? Both experts say communication, for one, is essential.
“This is above and beyond the most important component of a farm transition,” says Lewko, noting that people need to feel like they’ve had an opportunity to speak and be heard. He adds it’s equally important for both sides to listen and really try to understand each other’s point of view, without projecting their own views or ideas.
Froese adds she believes many older farmers feel the way to solve problems is just put their heads down and work harder, not recognizing how powerful healthy family relationships and making collaborative decisions with the next generation can be.
A good starting place for farmers to get unstuck on transition planning is to change their mindset around conflict, which shouldn’t be viewed as a bad thing but rather an opportunity for conflict resolution, explains Froese.
“I’m tired of people saying, ‘keep the emotions out of it’ because people’s emotions are part of conflict and expressing emotion is a positive conflict behavior,” she says. “Once you understand why something is so important to someone, then you can start creating solutions to make changes around it.”
Froese maintains that if families can come together and get everything out in the open for people to talk about, it can lead to positive discussions about how they can grow together on the farm and find a path for transition that aligns with everyone’s values.
“You do that by having conversations and figuring out what does a good day look like on the farm,” she says. “It’s not just about the numbers. It’s about the people. Are the people happy? Do the people feel they have a good quality of life? Do the people feel they have enough financial security?
“By having everyone at the table, you can pound out expectations, you can pound out what reasonable timelines are, and then you can actually put an action plan in place,” says Froese.
Lewko notes constructive discussions around transition planning can happen in number of ways. This could include scheduling regular meetings or having farm successors submit written proposals to the farm founders to consider.
“There’s no magic bullet that’s going to work for every single farm,” he says. “It really is just keeping that communication open and finding out within each family how that works.”
Get Help
Lewko says once things start rolling on a transition plan, a common mistake is for farmers to do what comes naturally and attempt to do everything themselves.
“By nature, farmers will go from doing their taxes to trying to change an engine in their tractor to inoculating their cattle,” he says. “This is one thing where you need help.”
Lewko says it’s important to try to build good team around you to assist with what can be a complicated process. This can include accountants, lawyers, financial consultants and other trusted advisors.
Lewko says when farmers can get good professional advice on transition planning and see what works for other farmers, “it makes it so much easier. It doesn’t feel like an insurmountable task and starts to feel like just another necessary part of running your farming operation.”
He notes there’s lots of good information, including links to webinars and planning tools, that farmers can access on the FCC website at fcc-fac.ca. “It’s a really good place to start,” Lewko says.
Farmers can find more supports, resources and practical tools for successful transition planning at Froese’s website, elainefroese.com. You can also book a meeting with Froese and other members of her farm coaching team.
Froese notes the coaches are skilled in conflict resolution and other techniques that can help families get unstuck and find fairness in farm transition – something she stresses often requires reconciliation and repairing fractured relationships in addition to finding common ground.
“You can’t typically do that on your own because you’re too emotionally engaged in the outcome,” Froese explains, adding professional mediation and facilitation can be invaluable in helping farm families work things out, if everyone is willing to put in the work.