Columbia Basin, Ephrata, WA | Chief Illiniwek - 2/19/2026 12:07
Another thread down the page had me thinking and wanting to say something to the young guys who are nearing marriage/starting families. Just some food for thought for those guys.
If you expect to own a significant amount of acres in a farm someday, you’ve got a sacrifice to make and you need to make the decision now, and there’s no getting out of sacrificing something. You can
1: sacrifice the viability of your family farm by having lots of kids and splitting the acreage between them at your death
2: potentially sacrifice a living, cohesive family by splitting your estate in less than an exactly equal way
3: sacrifice the joy of having multiple kids, but this allows you to give the whole farm to one child and keep the family farm whole
There’s no perfect solution, but I thought spelling it out to young guys now at least gets them thinking about what choices may need to be made later.
About number 1:
Why is it assumed lots of kids sacrifices the viability of the farm? What if the kids are hard workers, good decision makers, and capable farmers? They could be the best trained, most dedicated and invested group of personnel you’ll ever have to take the farm to places it can’t go on dad’s efforts alone.
About number 3:
The only child plan is extremely high risk and IMO relatively low reward. (Don’t take that the wrong way, only child due to circumstances people. I get it, not everyone gets blessed with more than one.) The risk is that child is incapable, uninterested, or doesn’t survive. Ever been to the funeral of a bright, promising 17 year old only child? It is a crushing experience that you’ll want to do everything you can to avoid ever replicating any part of it that can be avoided.
So I guess in short I find your three thought points overly pessimistic and/or unrealistic.
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To the young guys- inheritance
