Make Room for the Next Generation’s Dream

One of my all-time favorite authors, Brandon Sanderson, once wrote;

For so many of my farmers their first love was just that, farming.

The feel of the land under their tractor, the sound of cows in a barn, the satisfaction of a day’s hard work. A life spent in a labor of love.

But this existence isn’t without hurt. Physical, mental and financial sacrifices surround the field. Daily hurt often defines agriculture. As one might say, it’s the ultimate school of hard knocks.

So how do we reduce this hurt for our next generation of farmers?

For me, as a consultant, it comes down to the third part of Sanderson’s quote. “When will we dream?”

So many times I have watched dreams go unsaid. The older generation often doesn’t share their vision, or if they do, there is a lack of a plan to make it a reality. Farms in this rut can run for decades without a shared dream of growth, expansion, updates, or transition.

The hard part about dreams like this? They work! Often the farms are successful, pay the bills and allow everyone to do what they love. But many times, they are simply delaying the hurt, forcing the next generation to deal with it once the current generation’s chapter is closed.

Managing this future hurt comes from having hard conversations where we ask questions like:

• What does farming look like to you?
• Do you want to grow in size?
• What is manageable debt?
• What will each person’s role be in the operation?

All of these pivotal conversations set the scene of a cooperative dream. Discussions where the current and future managers of the farm come together, creating something more powerful.

The ultimate goal? When one individual dream ends, another individual’s dream can begin.

In fulfilling the last part of the quote, we can take solace in the fact that we have done the best we can to protect the next generation from hurt…creating something that they can love…providing them with a foundation they too can dream and build upon.

In doing this you can be sure that you’ve helped build something strong enough to survive anything the world throws their way.

To help facilitate these conversations I encourage producers to begin by simply engaging their consulting team; talk to their vet about what other producers have done, bring in their banker and discuss the financial details, engage their agronomist and nutritionist to discuss what future expansion might entail. In each of these conversations, invite and engage the next generation. Through these interactions you will learn a little more about each other’s dreams.

Each of these discussions will bring your operation one step closer to a unified dream. But more importantly they will garner insight for the will help the next generation of farmers to choose how they will dream, hurt and love as well.

For more on succession planning, read:

• When Siblings Share the Farm but Not the Same Vision
• 60% of Dairy’s Future Hangs in the Balance of Succession
• Don’t Push Pause: How a Near-Fatal Accident Made Our Farm Succession Plan Crystal Clear