A catalyst for adaptation, advancement and innovation within the agriculture and agri-food community.
NEWS RELEASES - 2007
Transferring Francophone Farms to
the Next Generation
Successful farm transfers are essential for the health of farm families, and for
the health of Ontario’s agriculture, too.
Guelph, May 8, 2007 - Farmers are used to dealing with tough issues. So, when
the Union des cultivateurs franco-ontariens (UCFO) found that 80 per cent of
Ontario’s francophone farmers are hoping they’ll be able to transfer their farms
to their children, but only 20 per cent have worked out how to do it, they knew
they were staring at a real problem.
“In today’s agriculture, it takes real planning and commitment to bring the next
generation into the farm business,” says Nadia Carrier, executive director of
the UCFO.
“Our goal is to help connect families with the tools, expertise and support they
need to work their way through the process,” Carrier says. “It can be one of the
most rewarding – but also one of the most challenging - times in a farm family’s
life.”
With funding from the Agricultural Management Institute (AMI), the new UCFO
initiative is part of a broader plan by the francophone farm group to ensure a
steady flow of new farmers and new businesses to maintain a vibrant, innovative
agriculture.
“Succession planning is a process,” Carrier says. “It’s about seeing the farm
unit as a family and also as a business. Each of those is complex enough, and
when you try to bring them together, you need to be committed to the process in
order to make it a success.”
The UCFO team started by surveying francophone farmers to learn what roadblocks
were preventing them from creating formal succession plans.
Most families said they needed a roadmap, Carrier says. Families also said they
needed to know what tools and what sources of information and advice are
available.
A successful plan must give the parents a stable retirement income, and it needs
to take into account the different needs of their children to gain skills and to
work their way toward management and ownership, Carrier says.
UCFO has responded with an initial set of three workshops for 53 farm families
in Eastern and Northern Ontario, helping them work through the important
components of a succession plan. They’re learning how to foster open and honest
dialogue, and how to navigate their best path through myriad business and
taxation options.
Most important is for the family to come together around a comprehensive
business plan, says Peter Vander Zaag, potato farmer at Alliston, Ontario and
chair of the AMI advisory panel. Operating through the Agricultural Adaptation
Council (AAC), AMI fosters the development and adoption of business practices
that enhance farmers’ growth and sustainability.
“Once you decide as a family where you want to go, you can start developing an
action plan to get there,” Vander Zaag says.
“When everyone can articulate that plan,” Vander Zaag adds, “that’s when you
begin to really believe that you can succeed.”
To help families get there, UCFO is planning more workshops for next fall, and
the organization will also publish a guide in which 20 francophone families will
discuss how they worked out their own succession plans. “We need to get past the
feeling that our farm families are on their own,” says Carrier. “There are
business approaches that can succeed.”
For more information about AMI or to discuss AMI project ideas, please contact
the AAC at (519) 822-7445 or visit www.adaptcouncil.org.
The AMI program is funded through the Renewal chapter of the Agricultural Policy
Framework, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative designed to position
Canada’s agri-food sector as a world leader. The AAC administers the AMI program
on behalf of the Government of Canada and the Province of Ontario.
-30-
For more information contact:
Nadine Armstrong
Communications Manager
Agricultural Adaptation Council
Phone: (519) 822-7554
Fax: (519) 822-6248
E-mail: narmstrong@adaptcouncil.org
