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NW Missouri | My situation is similar to yours in some ways, but different in others. I left for about 10 years while I went to college and began my career. When a job opportunity came up close to home, I took it and moved back.
I can't speak to the transition part as my parents have not transitioned anything yet as far as land ownership. They have gone to some meetings and met with a couple people, but have not finalized anything. They've told us enough that I have a rough idea what their plan is, as do my siblings, but it's theirs - they can do as they wish and I won't offer up any opinions unless I'm asked. I believe they will get something done fairly soon as they are actively working on it now. I am the only one of my siblings that is active in the farming operation.
The main point of my post is to explain how the operating part of the business transitioned when I came back. While I was gone, Dad had cut back some (sold the cows and rented out the pasture, sold the combine and hired it done) because he couldn't get it all done by himself. He had a day job too. Dad is retired from his day job now, but not from farming. We farm as equal partners, but we keep that separate from the land ownership. Dad owns his land, and I have been able to buy a couple of farms over the last few years as well. We use share rent. So on Dad's land, he gets a 50% share as the landowner, and then he and I split the other 50% as the operators. So I am getting a 25% share for my half of the labor and equipment (I pay 25% of crop inputs). Same thing on my farms. Each of us own about half the machinery. It took a few years to get to that point and we run older stuff, so it was not a huge burden for me, but the first thing I did when I came back was buy a combine and heads, so I was providing equipment to the operation right away. We split all repair bills (doesn't matter who owns it, who we were running on, or what we were doing when it broke), all fuel, etc. Our rented ground is all split 50/50. After a handful of years we got back into cattle, and they were all bought 50/50, and now we have more than we have ever had. We each own about the same amount of hay and pasture now, so we don't rent anything from each other, we just figure it's close enough.
It works well for us, and allowed me to get some skin in the game without going really deep in debt, which would have prevented me from buying the farms I have bought. Besides the labor and capital I brought to the table, I also was able to secure a couple of custom jobs for the combine and add some rented farms to our operation from contacts I have made.
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Young Farmer
