Winter is the season of farm meetings and banquets. A western Wisconsin attorney says it’s also a good time for farmers to create or review their farm-transition plans.
Bridget Finke of Valley Crossing Law at Baldwin said those transition plans, which directly deal with how a farm’s business plan is carried out, should be reviewed on an annual basis — and that, any farmer who doesn’t have such a plan would do well to create a plan.
“We’ve got a little time left before we’re back in the field to deal with some of this business stuff,” Finke said.
Transition plans are sorts of buy-sell agreements that give direction to family members and business associates about what will happen to a farm’s assets if the farmer should die or decide to get out of the business; Finke said it should ask a basic question: “How do we do this orderly n and out of business?”
The attorney said it’s important to deal with touch matters such as who will be involved in the operation after the farm’s owners have departed, and how assets’ values and payouts are controlled.
Finke said she looks toward flexibility when approaching each farm’s situation, and that the plan’s review should be reviewed annually.
“It’s good to sit each year to review values,” she said. “That’s all good business management.”
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