Bill Milton, a rancher near Roundup, Montana, in his late 70s, faces a succession question that many farm families meet: his three children want to keep owning the ranch, but all have established careers elsewhere. So who will run it?
"We wanted to figure out, how can we go about finding a young person who wants to make a life out of agriculture?" Milton told Northern Ag Network. For him the answer is not a hired hand but someone who becomes an integral part of the operation and eventually holds an ownership stake.
The biggest barrier for young people, he said, is the cost of entry: land, livestock, equipment and operating expenses are hard to finance without a family operation or capital. Yet there are young people with the drive to succeed if they find the right opening. "If they're going to be a leader in the business... they're going to need something more than a salary," he said. "The equity is the thing that motivates them to think creatively."
Finding the right person is not simple. Families have to weigh personalities, skills, responsibilities and how a partner fits an existing family business, and Milton said even families with a successor at home need outside help with succession planning because of its many moving parts.
His aim, he said, is to protect Montana's family ranch culture, keep operations profitable, look after the grass and livestock and bring young people in, which he believes will take collaboration and new approaches to ownership and business structure. "We've got to make the pie bigger through creative stuff so more young people can come to this business," he said.
The report is by Colter Brown of Northern Ag Network.
Photo: Tim Evanson / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Northern Ag Network
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