On my flight from London today, I sat beside a young man who runs a computer business. We got talking about what we both do. I mentioned I was coming here today. One of the issues we were talking about was succession planning. It turns out this fellow is from Montreal but his wife comes from a farm family south of Montreal. The father and mother have a dairy farm operation where they milk 120 cows. They have six daughters, and one of the daughters wants to take over the farm.
He mentioned what a struggle it is within the family to figure out what to do. One thing we agreed on was that one of the last things this generation of farmers who are transitioning out want to talk about is succession planning. They would rather talk about what kinds of crops they're going to grow this year or how much milk their cow gives.
I think that's one of the big challenges, getting farm families to look at succession planning and talk about it early so that plans can be put in place at an early time, so that the transition will be easier. It's still going to be very difficult. I know life insurance companies are looking at helping with transition. I know we as a credit union are encouraging our farm families, through seminars and webinars, to talk about the issue, to consult their accountants and lawyers, to find ways of transitioning to the next generation.
I think it behooves all of us to bring it top of mind to farm families, have them plan early and come up with some workable solution. That being said, it's a daunting challenge that all of us need to work on.