A distraught, middle-aged farmwoman recently asked me for advice on buying her daughter a farmhouse just down the road. This is a loaded question. When farm founders are considering how long they want to live on the farm, there can be a lot of conflict and frustration.

A distraught, middle-aged farmwoman recently asked me for advice on buying her daughter a farmhouse just down the road. This is a loaded question. When farm founders are considering how long they want to live on the farm, there can be a lot of conflict and frustration.

Sitting on my stool in front of the third farm audience of the week, I should not have been surprised to receive the same question for the third time by text: “Elaine, how we do we stop the conflict on our farm?”

Sitting on my stool in front of the third farm audience of the week, I should not have been surprised to receive the same question for the third time by text: “Elaine, how we do we stop the conflict on our farm?”

“Work/life balance” comes up for many young farmers, but it’s time to change our language to “choices we make to manage time” and take action.

If you’re fighting storms or sorting cows, grab five minutes to soak this story in. You cannot neglect tending to the needs of your cows. Let’s talk about embracing the same urgency with your farm transition conversations.

Being content calls us to reflect and cherish a spiritual gift we can choose to open. We each have the chance to accept and open up a vital dynamic relationship with God for our lives, for the present and for our eternal well-being.

BDO’s Maggie Van Camp, leader of agricultural development, sees the key foreboding issue for agriculture as farm succession. She asks, “Who is going to farm in future generations … and how the heck are we going to transfer the management and ownership of those farms?