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So You Have Inherited a Farm, Now What?

Allan Vyhnalek and Jim Jansen

Summary

The “So You’ve Inherited a Farm, Now What?” program development came from interactions with University of Nebraska Extension clientele primarily 40 to 60 years in age whom recently inherited farmland from a direct family relation and now face the challenge of managing the agricultural property. In many cases, farmland inherited by these new landowners came from their parents and very little information may have been shared with the new land owners about managing and maintaining the property. A series of five pilot meetings held across Nebraska in 2016 had over 120 participants in attendance covering the curriculum designed to address the needs of new farmland owners.
The program curriculum focuses on four core topics: 1) What do you have? This section focuses on current trends in land values and cash rental rates; 2) How is the property owned? This part covers the different ownership structures from fee simple to corporate ownership of land; 3) Who do you need to communicate with? This section focuses on the relationships that need to be built to have successful ownership for the new generation involved; and 4) Now what are you going to do with the land? This final part covers the options of keeping or selling the property; if keeping, farm yourself or rent; if renting, cash rent or crop share along with related lease considerations.
The extension team teaching this program delivered the curriculum in a three hour program. However, with additional program development the curriculum could be expanded to cover an entire day long setting. A total of 83 participants completed an end of meeting evaluation instrument. These 83 direct contacts represented 14,135 acres of cropland, 4,143 acres of pasture or rangeland, and 830 acres of forage reported as being influenced. Also, a total of 39,108 owned agricultural acres reported as being influenced.
Participants reported a $34.32 per acre value of education from the outreach program, which extrapolates to $1,342,187 across attending workshop participants.
Individual program impact evaluations (scale: 1 (no good) - 5 (very good), n = 83) for the end of meeting survey showed: 94.6% of participants indicated the quality of the presentation as good to very good, 76.4% of participants indicated a desire to implement attained research-based information on rental rates and land values on their operation within the next 6 months. Beginning landowner testimonial: “This could have been an all-day session, time went so fast, I'll be attending all future meetings.”
ABSTRACT NOTE: Please consider this abstract for the 30 minute presentation, poster session, or both.

Details

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