I have been to a couple of trade shows and presentations since starting my employment in Sidney, and it seems to me that one very important subject keeps coming up at these events: estate planning. It is no secret that the farming population is aging and that, more and more, there is a declining interest in the next generation wanting to come back and take over mom’s and dad’s farm.

So what is a person to do? I wish that I could give you all the answers in this brief column, but there are way too many variables that go into each particular situation, and I, myself, am no expert on estate planning. But there are a few things that I have picked up along the way that may be useful information when trying to decide how to plan for the future of a farming operation.

The first bit of advice is that doing something is always better than doing nothing at all. Simply having a will made out and making sure that those that need to, know where it is, is a very good first step. Keeping that will up-to-date is a very good plan of action as well. My second bit of advice when it comes to estate planning is advice that I have borrowed from a speaker at the National Wheat Show in Williston. Ron Hanson, a professor from the University of Nebraska, really drove home the point that, and I will try and quote him as best I can, “as long as everyone feels like they are treated fairly, there generally are no hard feelings.”

However, with that being said, Dr. Hanson is quick to point out that “fair does not always mean equal.” For example, if you have two siblings and one stays on the farm and the other does not, would it be fair to split the farm in half and leave half to each sibling? In most cases probably not but there are probably cases where it would.

My final point that I want to leave you with when looking at farm succession is this: it’s complicated! I would never pretend to know all that there is to know about estate planning and, as I mentioned above, each situation has its own set of unique issues and challenges.

So probably the best advice that I can give you is to seek professional help. Talk to friends about what they are doing or who they are using to help, talk to financial advisors and/or estate planning specialists, or do some research on your own using various “trusted” resources.

To that end, there is a very good Web site that is hosted by the University of Minnesota. The Web site is called Ag Transitions and is a collaboration of many specialists from across the United States. To visit the Ag Transitions Web site, go to https://www.agtransitions.umn.edu.