Cultivating Your Farm’s Future: Farm Succession Workshops Start Feb. 6

Posted on: January 18, 2025

Cultivating Your Farm’s Future: Farm Succession Workshops Start Feb. 6, 2025

Join our UW-Madison Division of Extension Farm Management Specialists, Joy Kirkpatrick, Steph Plaster, Kelly Wilfert, and Kevin Bernhardt as they lead discussions and activities during the Cultivating Your Farm’s Future workshop series. This program will provide tools and resources for farmers who want to start their succession plans.

The program will explore the three-step process of planning your business succession:

Where are you now?
Where do you want to be?
How do you get there?

This workshop series will prepare you to shape and communicate your ideas about the future of the farm and business as well as save time by having these crucial conversations before visiting with professionals.

Who should attend?

This program is for farm businesses and farm families interested in shaping the future ownership of their farm. If you are the owner generation, you may be wondering how to transfer a viable business to the next generation or develop a fair inheritance distribution plan. If you are the next generation, you may have questions or ideas about your future role in the farm business. Multiple farm/family members are encouraged to attend together.

What topics are covered?

Communication preferences and how to talk about the farm’s future
Common tensions around farm succession
Inheritance distributions – Is equal fair?
Financials for farm succession
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats – SWOT analysis
Business structures for farm succession
Setting goals and action steps
Assembling your team for succession planning

When are these classes?

The 2025 session will be held Thursday evenings in February: Feb. 6, 13, 20 and 27, 2025, from 6:30 – 8:00 pm.

How is the program delivered?

Four live sessions will be via Zoom, so participants can join from anywhere! Each week participants will receive an email with homework assignments. The homework is designed to help participants gather information and be prepared for the discussions and activities during the live Zoom sessions. The homework will be a mix of short videos, worksheets or reading assignments. The hard copies of the materials for the program will be mailed out before the first week of class. If the farm has participants living at different locations, we will need all the addresses at registration so we can mail materials to the appropriate addresses.

Registration details

Registration Fee: $125/per farm. We encourage farms to sign up multiple farm/family members (all for $125/farm). This fee provides one Cultivating Your Farm’s Future workbook per farm, a participant manual for each person registered, access to course videos that are assigned as homework, and four live zoom classes. The live sessions will not be recorded.

If farms want additional Cultivating Your Farm’s Future workbooks those are $15/additional workbook.

The registration deadline is Wednesday, January 29, 2025, to ensure participants receive the mailed materials in time for the first class. Registration is limited to 20 farms.

Even if you have attended other transition, estate, or succession planning classes, consider attending this program to get a START on YOUR succession plan.

This educational program is supported by USDA-NIFA award number 2023-70028-41284.

For more information contact Joy Kirkpatrick, Farm Succession Outreach Specialist, joy.kirkpatrick@wisc.edu, 608.263.3485

Editor’s note: The above press release was received from the University of Wisconsin – Madison / Division of Extension – Walworth County. The Banner appreciates having permission to use the image on the homepage by Albrecht Fietz from Pixabay.