Estate Planning for Farmers
Estate planning is important for almost everyone, but it's especially important when a family business is involved. Business succession planning is sort of like estate planning on steroids -- every issue is bigger and more unwieldy. This article by Jim Wasserman of The Sacramento Bee does a very good job of touching on the major issues, such as:
-the older generation's fear of "losing power, control and their identities";
-the difficulty of finding family members who want to take over the farm; and
-the problems with treating family members (whether involved in farming operations or not) fairly.
The book mentioned in the article (Legacy By Design: Succession Planning for Agribusiness Owners, by Kevin Spafford) is available here. And if you're looking for a great fictional take on succession planning, look no further than Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres.
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