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| Agree with Seth. If you have someone in the family who sincerely wants to keep this as a family farm and has some knowledge of Agriculture and business management, it is time to sit down with them and start a future business plan. If the kids don't care about their family roots of growing up on the farm, don't want to be bothered with management decisions, or live to far away to care or have time to devote to the farm, it will probably go on the auction block unless it makes them a nice small income each year. Then there is always the possibilty of one saying, I want it sold because I want my share of the estate. I have seen farms disposed of and families riddled by divorces because someone thought they were going to get a sum of cash when the old man died. And to make matters worse, one shareholder gets a divorce and the spouse want 1/2 of the share. I have been thru some of the previous mentioned as the executor and operator and joint heir of one large and two smaller farms. Everything worked out fine. The first thing is to sit down with all the heirs and say, I am thinking about retiring and what do you want to do withith this operation. Then explain the options. We had several operations that were operated by good, honest farmers who made the owners money . The farm managers are lke the stock brokers make money for them self first. Farm down the road had a manager. They were getting there Delkalb from the manager and needed an extra 5 bu which I had and was going to return, so sold it to the tennant. Copied my bill and said give me a check at this volume discount price per bu. Landowner questioned the operator why are we paying full price and Bob gets it $3 cheaper. Operator explained the volume discount system and said, if your manager is sending out 5,000 bu to the operations and billing full price, he made 15,000 pocket money plus his sales commission. The farm manager was gone the next year. In my case, all three kids went off to college , came back, have good local jobs,, gave each land to build homes on, and they are the 7th generation land owners. They know the will, where the money is and who the executor is. None will actively have to farm for there is a transision plan the covers the next 10 years. Bob Ohio | |
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Chosing a farm management firm.
