REGINA – Succession planning, how to manage the family farm, and other issues were all the focus on Farm Credit Canada’s Young Farmer Summit in Regina.
According to Jason Fiske, manager of FCC Knowledge, it is an “opportunity for producers to take a day away from the farm, away from sort of the duties that they're doing on that side of the business, and focus on business management practices as it relates to their operation.”
This is one of a number of similar events that FCC says they hold in a number of different centres, and this one was well attended with a large turnout of young farmers on hand at REAL District. A lot of the presentations focused on the business side of the farm operation, as well as the hot topic of succession planning.
It was the afternoon presentation of author Dr. Tom Deans on “How Successful Families Prepare Heirs and Transfer Wealth” that focused primarily on that topic of intergenerational wealth transfer, and how to prepare successfully to pass down the family farm to the next generation.
“Transition planning, for sure, is probably the top topic we hear about from both generations, from the senior and the junior generation on the farm,” Fiske said.
“And so a lot of the presenters we have today will talk about trying to open up lines of communication between all the parties involved and have a plan and really be intentional about creating a transition plan. Because the earlier you start, probably the more options you have available to you to really put something down that is sort of a success for everybody within the family.”
Another presenter was Evan Shout of Maverick Ag, whose presentation was titled “Beyond Dirt and Diesel – Building a CEO Mindset.”
“We talk a lot about the CEO mindset with agriculture, and I think Evan does a great job of highlighting what that looks like in action,” Fiske said. “And so we even developed a farm CEO checklist where we say, hey, these are the things we think are critical for you to sort of keep top of mind, and sort of revisit on a regular basis when it comes to your business.”
Fiske noted a lot of their other speakers at the event highlighted the fact that “yeah, it's a business. It creates a great lifestyle, but it's really the business that enables that lifestyle.”
That fed in to the purpose of the presentations at Queensbury Convention Centre that day, which Fiske said were geared to that business side of the farm.
“I think a lot of people think of farming as growing things and doing things outside and sort of getting more on the primary production side," Fiske said.
"And so our hope is that the attendees today can grow in the area of business management and that they run their farm like a business, because that's really what it is. And so we want to give them the tools and the knowledge and the capabilities to put that into action.”
While there are challenges to farming these days, including some unstable economic conditions, the prevailing message was of a positive outlook. Fiske pointed to what Shout had to say about the “great opportunity that can come with young farmers these days.”
“But that comes with, I think, focus and resilience and doing the right thing. And so there's certainly lots of challenges, I think, that the industry is facing now and that future generations will face. But the one thing you can say about Canadian farmers is that they're very resilient, and I think that's going to be something that's a trait that's going to have to carry on in this next generation as well.”
FCC have more events aimed at farmers scheduled for the coming weeks. They are looking to bring back Evan Shout for a business management workshop with producers on Feb. 17 in Moose Jaw.
Fiske said they then plan to go to Yorkton, to do a “transition workshop just to help producers sort of understand what they need to do to sort of prepare… And that's something where it's a format where we're hoping that families can come and participate in something like that, because it is a workshop and there's activities that will sort of help them move that plan forward.”
That event, called the Bridging the Gap Farm Transition Workshop, is March 17 in Yorkton.
