Farm Estate Planning
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
About 98% of farms across the United States are family-owned and operated, yet the number of younger-generation agriculturists returning to the farm is trending lower. “Farming without the Bank” author Mary Jo Irmen believes more millennials would be enticed to continue the family farm if there was a clear estate plan in place.
Irmen.. “We are not losing family farms because millennials are lazy. We are losing family farms because millennials are not Gen Xers and the, and many Gen Xers even are like, you know what? You either decide what you're going to do for an estate plan or I'm gone. They want a plan and if you don't do the estate plan, they're not going to work their butt off to save your operation. And so. We are losing farmers on a daily basis because our estate plan sucks and we don't have the generational wealth to be handing it off for it to survive. I mean, on my website, I have a generational wealth illustration. By the fourth generation, we could be passing on 44 million income tax-free. Do you think that would help save some farms instead of just thinking the big guy is the one that's getting it all?”
That’s author and podcast host, Mary Jo Irmen.
