Transitioning farms to kids

A discussion with agriculture attorney Kim Maloney concerning transitioning farms from aging farmers to their children. “If they do want to take over the farm, how do you get that transition working? There are a lot of things that farmers will need to consider. You have to transition operations. You may have to transition real property if you do own the property and you don’t lease it. All of that has implications for gifting and taxes. It has been a challenge that people are looking at all over the country. One of the challenges that young farmers have raised is a lack of ability to get land and the government has taken a look at their CRP program, the resource program, and have made some changes to that to allow people to have some early termination rights on CRP contracts. If you have a new farmer that is getting into the business, to try and help some of these young people get in. Another question is, what happens if all of our farmers age out. Then you come into the challenges of making that transfer even if they do want to.