The numbers are staggering. Farmers older than 65 outnumber farmers under 35 by five to one. In the next 20 years, 70% of U.S. farmland will change ownership. Seventy-seven percent of that land will transfer to relatives.
That means succession planning and estate planning should be major focuses for farm families in years to come. An industry survey showed that nearly 100% of farmers say that succession planning is important, but only 20% are actually doing it.
That was a number David Mayo, a teaching instructor with East Carolina University, was trying to increase with his presentation during the Southeast Regional Fruit & Vegetable Conference held in Savannah in early January. Mayo also is the director of the Crisp Small Business Resource Center.
He encouraged growers who have not started a plan to get started now and added it is about more than legal aspects like wills. The more prepared you are, the less likely you are to follow the statistical trend that second-generation farm survival is 30%, third-generation survival is 12%, and only 3% of farms make it to the fourth generation.
“It is never too early to start planning,” Mayo said. “You will start seeing benefits immediately. Think about how you begin to develop leaders in the organization, how you start to transition responsibilities and how you transition ownership and control of your farm. You will start to see benefits from the ideas of the next generation coming forward and from the mentorship from the previous generation.
“We really want to be sure farms are developing the leaders that are capable of taking the farm forward and not bringing in family members just for the sake of bringing in family members. So, we want to develop the leaders, not change the job description based on who is available to run the farm. We are really focused on developing competency of the next generation of leaders.”
Mayo walked conference attendees through several exercises used to gauge just how prepared they are for succession planning. To learn more, visit the East Carolina University Crisp Small Business Resource Center or reach Mayo directly at mayod@ecu.edu.