Farm families do not always fall apart because siblings cannot work together. Sometimes the harder part comes years later, when the farm has grown, the siblings have grown older and the next generation starts asking where they fit.
Brothers who once came home from college and built a farm side by side can eventually find themselves in their 60s, working alongside children in their 30s and 40s. Spouses enter the picture. Some children want to farm. Others do not. Retirement starts looking different to each person.
For Kevin Hegedus, Certified Financial Planner and founding partner of PWM Private Wealth Counsel, those dynamics can expose cracks in a partnership that once worked well. Hegedus discussed the challenges with farm family coach Elaine Froese on the Farm Family Harmony Podcast.
Hegedus grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan and has spent more than 30 years working with farm families. He says disagreements often do not start with the siblings who built the farm together. Instead, the tension can surface when their children and spouses enter the operation.
“And that happens quite often. Not so much the brothers don’t agree, but a lot of times what I find is their kids and their kids’ spouses. That’s where there’s some interesting dynamics there, right? And that’s where the conflicts start,” Hegedus says.
In some cases, the only solution families see is splitting the farm. Others reach a point where one sibling decides it is time to leave and asks the others to buy them out. Neither option is easy when siblings have spent decades building an operation together.
“I’ve seen more cases than not where they actually split the farm. Or I’ve seen cases where the older brother just says, ‘You know what? I’m going to retire. Buy me out,’” Hegedus says.
Start Talking Before the Farm Has to Change
The problem often is not the disagreement itself. It is waiting until the family has little time or few options left.
Hegedus sees the same issue with older couples who disagree about retirement. One spouse may be ready to leave the farm and move to town while the other has no interest in giving up the farm. By the time those differences surface, there may not be enough time to build a plan both people can live with.
“If they’re 72 and 73, they should have had that question asked them 10 years earlier,” Hegedus says.
A conversation at 58 or 62 looks much different than one at 72. Families can use quieter periods of the year to start talking about what comes next. Hegedus suggests having family conversations after harvest, when there is more time to sit around the table and talk without the pressure of daily farm work.
“Having that family conversation maybe after harvest is really important. And then I think finding out what everyone wants and be honest and put it on the table,” he says.
Those conversations may uncover some surprises. A child parents assumed would return to the farm may have different plans. A spouse may have a different vision for the future. A sibling who has farmed for decades may be ready to move on. The sooner families know where everyone stands, the more options they have.
Separate the Farm From the Family
Farmers often have a hard time imagining life away from the operation because farming is more than a job. It is tied to identity, family history and a lifetime of work.
“When you say that you’re an owner of a farm, what they’re really saying is, ‘I’m a farmer.’ It’s part of who they are,” Hegedus says.
That identity can make retirement and succession especially difficult. Stepping away from the farm can feel like giving up part of yourself, while handing over control can feel like giving up something built over an entire lifetime.
It can also make it harder for the next generation to take over. An older farmer may tell the next generation they will step back at some point, but never define when or what stepping back actually looks like. Meanwhile, a 40-year-old son or daughter may feel like they are still being managed by a parent who has no plans to relinquish control.
Hegedus recommends starting the conversation while there is still plenty of time.
“If you ask someone at 55 or 58 or 60, the answer would probably be closer to 65. If you ask someone that’s 67 years old when they’re going to step back, they might say never,” he says.
One way to make the conversation less threatening is to focus on how a role will change rather than telling someone to quit farming. Instead of asking, “When are you going to retire?” families can ask when a parent expects their role to change and what responsibilities will move to the next generation.
Once the question is on the table, it can be revisited every year. A family does not have to solve the entire transition in one meeting, but everyone should know the conversation is ongoing.
“If you and me were in business and we had that conversation for the last eight years, well, it’s pretty hard for me to say, ‘Well, you know what, what we’ve been saying for the last eight years, I’m going to throw it out the window,’” Hegedus says.
Equal Does Not Always Mean Fair
Sibling disagreements often become more complicated when inheritance enters the conversation. One child may devote decades to the farm while other children build careers elsewhere. Splitting every asset equally may sound fair on paper, but it can leave the farming child with an operation they cannot afford to own.
“I think there’s a difference between equal and fair,” Hegedus says.
For him, fairness means helping each family member have a chance to succeed, even if each person receives something different. Consider a farm worth $5 million with three children, only one of whom plans to farm. Hegedus says parents might use life insurance to provide wealth to the non-farming children while allowing the farming child to take over the operation.
“I don’t think each of those other two kids should get $5 million. Because the daughter that stuck around since she was 18 years old and out of high school, maybe she went to university, she’s got an ag degree, but she’s the one that came back to the farm. She’s the one that busted her butt building that farm with her mom and dad,” Hegedus says.
The strategy is not about giving one child more because they are favored. It is about recognizing the work, investment and risk involved in keeping the farm going. It also requires planning early because insurance can become more expensive or difficult to obtain as parents age.
“Planning sooner than later gives families more tools to work with,” Hegedus says.
Give the Next Generation Room to Build
Succession planning also requires looking beyond the farm’s balance sheet. Many farm families have spent decades putting wealth into land, machinery and livestock while building little personal wealth outside the operation. When retirement arrives, the farm may be worth millions, but the parents still need an income stream.
Hegedus often runs several scenarios with farm families. One option may involve renting the land to the next generation while selling machinery and inventory. Selling equipment can unlock significant capital, especially on farms carrying millions of dollars worth of machinery.
“If we rent the land out and sell the machinery, all of a sudden that $100,000 that they have saved can actually be maybe $2 or $3 million,” he says.
The exact numbers will vary, but the exercise helps families see retirement as more than simply selling the farm or continuing to farm indefinitely. The goal is to turn farm wealth into an income stream capable of supporting the older generation for the rest of their lives.
That includes planning for housing, health care and the possibility of needing additional help later in life.
“We all want our kids to be more successful than we were. So how do we make sure that what we work so hard for goes to that next generation properly?” Hegedus says.
Make Family Meetings Part of the Farm
Farm succession conversations do not have to feel like business meetings. One farm family Elaine Froese, a farm family coach and host of the Farm Family Harmony podcast, describes held an annual meeting after harvest at a hotel. The family treated it as a celebration, giving the kids time to swim and enjoy being together while also talking about the farm.
The meeting gave farming and non-farming children a chance to understand where the operation was headed. It also created space for the non-farming children to recognize the work their farming siblings were doing.
Those conversations can change the way family members view one another. A non-farming child may see the value of the land increasing and assume the farming sibling is getting rich. They may not see the debt, risk, long hours or tough years behind the numbers.
Regular family conversations bring some of those realities to the surface. They also remind everyone the farm is bigger than the person currently driving the tractor.
Give Everyone a Voice
Farm succession is rarely one conversation. It is a series of conversations held over years. Parents need to talk with their children about retirement. Siblings need to talk about whether they want to continue farming together. Non-farming heirs need an opportunity to share what they expect, or do not expect, from the estate.
For some families, the biggest source of conflict is not who gets the farm. It is the assumption everyone wants the same thing. A farming child may want more land. A parent may want to keep farming another 10 years. A spouse may want to move to town. A sibling may want to be bought out. A non-farming child may simply want their parents to have enough money to live comfortably.
None of those goals can be addressed if the family never talks about them.
Hegedus says farm families need to be willing to relinquish some control as part of the transition.
“At some point they either have to relinquish some of that control or it’s going to be forced. None of us are going to be here forever,” he says.
The goal is not to make every family member want the same future. It is to give the family enough time to build a future everyone can live with.
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