The North Carolina Farm Transition Network and various collaborators have partnered with USDA's Risk Management Agency to produce Planning the Future of Your Farm workshops for farmers and landowners across North Carolina.

The Planning the Future of Your Farm workshop model is an effort to help farmers, landowners, and their families develop a framework for making important decisions about keeping their farms in agriculture as they ultimately pass between generations.  The workshops provide information on personal values assessment, goal setting, and communicating about difficult issues within the family and farm business.  Collaborators will also help participants develop a framework for collecting information about their farm ownership, value, and resource potential, including an overview of conservation program options and legal tools and strategies for farm transfer and wealth preservation.

Participants will be put to work in various exercises to begin the process of putting their ideas about the future to paper, as a starting point for dealing with the often challenging issues of navigating family relationships as they relate to wealth and business management, and emotional attachment to the family farm.  Participants will also begin the process of collecting technical information about their estates as preparation for working with professional advisers.

A developing schedule is as follows (click the date for more detailed information on registration and agendas):

• February 2, Raleigh (as part of the Linking Youth and Farming Enterprise [LYFE] program administered by North Carolina A&T)
• February 6, Louisburg (Franklin County)
  
• February 8 & 9, Clinton Community College (Sampson County)
  
• February 20, Elizabeth City (Pasquotank County)
  
• March 6, Cherokee County (location TBD)

Selected programs are supported by the Southern Region Risk Management Education Center.

For more information, contact Andrew Branan at 919 732 7539 or abranan@gmail.com.