Agriculture committee  I don't have any comments on the particular bill because I'm not familiar with the nuances of it. I would say, as I indicated in the testimony, one of the challenges is really of wealth. You are there with a lot of assets that you're thinking about splitting among your kids equally, or, if you're going into retirement, treating yourself equitably.

Agriculture committee  We're constantly interfacing with the public and with farmers, based on a variety of different research that is going on in our department. Our students are often involved in the research that's going on. We might be researching farm prices and rental rates, which is something I would research, and then we would have students involved in that, bringing both their on-farm knowledge but also extending that into the community.

Agriculture committee  I guess I might have been a little surprised, too, when we started to look in the data and looked at 2011. Again, I want to get back to the point that whatever you do, you want to find a comparable, and it's kind of hard to find a comparable. In your footnotes you'll see some sensitivity analysis if you look at small enterprises versus medium enterprises.

Agriculture committee  I don't have the data for that spec. My anecdotal suggestion would be that the larger operations are having discussions with accountants, particularly tax advisers—that's very common—and also with lawyers in some cases for succession planning. I would imagine it varies with the scale of operation, but I would imagine it's very common.

Agriculture committee  Perhaps I could follow up on an earlier question that you asked, and I have the data footnoted in the report that I provided you. Farmers are in a much stronger human capital situation in order to interact with those groups. Of farmers under 35, 65% or so have a post-secondary education.

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts and research regarding contemporary issues facing young and start-up farmers who seek to begin or expand their farm operations. I'll also address the associated issue of debt and the transfer of farm operations from one generation to the next.