Understand your payments before buying land.
If you are one of the millions of farmers only a decade away from retirement, it’s crucial to begin succession planning right away. Being proactive can help you prepare for tax impacts, plan long-term goals for your ag operation, and benefit your family.
Succession Planning 101 is your four-step guide to protecting your farm’s future. Download the free pdf from FBN® Finance here now or continue reading below for more information, including an opportunity to connect with an advisor to discuss land financing for you or your successors.
Even if your retirement years seem distant, preparing well in advance can help you secure your own financial future and safeguard the future of your farm. Due to its complex nature, succession planning can often take up to two years, not including the additional time it can take to reach agreed upon terms. It’s a good idea to begin succession planning as early as possible.
Beginning your succession planning early can help with:
You have no doubt spent years nurturing your farmland, so it makes sense to harness that same care into planning what happens to your ag operation when you are ready to retire.
Succession planning can be time consuming and sometimes overwhelming as you gather necessary documentation, manage your family’s expectations alongside your own priorities, and deal with legal matters. Allotting time to educate yourself and weigh your options will help you make more informed decisions.
The average age of U.S. farmers is 58 years old, and it’s rising. However, the number of farmers under the age of 35 is just 9%.
If your successors have several years to work alongside you, they’ll be in a better position to learn key techniques, ask questions they may not think of until they’ve been doing the job for a while, and build relationships with partners and suppliers under your mentorship.
Farmers today encounter everything from global pandemics and wars that impact the ag market to more intimate circumstances like marriage, divorce, and death. While early succession planning may sound counterintuitive, making future updates to an existing plan is easier than being forced to rush to develop one in the first place because of outside pressures.
When you download the free Succession Planning 101 guide from FBN Finance, you’ll learn:
What information you need to compile (complete with lists!)
How to establish goals for your ag operation and your retirement
The experts you should gather for your planning team
Considerations for determining stakeholder options and transfer plan
During your succession planning, you may consider making improvements on your farm to attract a new farmer to head the business. Or, the next generation of your family may want to refinance the land loan. In either scenario, FBN Finance can help.
Our loan advisors, analysts, and closers each have an average of 15 years of ag finance experience and can help answer your land loan questions throughout your succession planning. FBN Finance is dedicated to helping family farmers, and we work with growers and producers to provide creative solutions to your financing needs. You can reach us at 844-200-FARM or click the button below to learn more and contact an advisor.
"At some point in time, you've got to look at transitioning the farm over to somebody else. A lot of local banks just don't want to work with the young people, and I think FBN's pretty open minded on making things happen and setting things up for the next generation to come in," says Steve Gerfen, a farmer in Ohio whose son Nole is also a farmer.
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