Legacy Planning for Your Farming Operation
Dan Peterson of e4 Brokerage, LLC met with the GGC Board of Directors at their June meeting to discuss Nationwide Financial’s ‘Land As Your Legacy’ planning program. “In the next 20 years, 70% of farming operations will transfer form one generation to the next. In order to preserve the farm for the next generation, planning is critical,” said Peterson.
Nationwide Mutual Insurance is one of the largest insurers of farming operations in the country and 10 of their 16 Board Members are farmers. Their ‘transitional’ planning program was driven by an interest to preserve a family’s farming legacy.
Elements of a successful transitional plan include:
- Succession planning;
- Business planning;
- Risk management;
- Financial independence planning; and
- Estate planning.
“This transition program takes a very deliberate approach,” said Peterson. It starts with goal setting and data collection. It proceeds in a manner to ‘let the farm speak’ about what is necessary for a successful transition. One of the most important elements is the family meeting exercise. “All too often, a transition plan fails because interested family members never talk directly about how a transition will take place.”
Nationwide Mutual does not charge for the development of the plan.
If you would like to learn about successful transition planning visit this program link ‘Land as Your Legacy‘ and/or contact Dan Peterson at dpeterson@e4brokerage.com.
