Free workshops on business succession and estate planning for farm and ranch owners, families and beginners will be held at several sites across the state this winter. Each workshop will also include a discussion of beginning farmer programs that can aid in succession planning.

To register or for more information on workshop times and specific locations, contact the Rural Response Hotline at 1-800-464-0258.

Topics will include:

• stages of succession planning;
• contribution, compensation, and balancing the interests of on-farm and off-farm heirs;
• the importance of communication, goal-setting, assessing feasibility, and balancing intergenerational expectations and needs;
• beginning farmer loan and tax credit programs;
• the use of trusts, wills, life estate deeds and business entities (such as the limited liability company) in family estate and business succession planning;  
• legal tools for balancing the interests of successors and off-farm heirs;
• asset protection;
• taxation (federal transfer taxes, Nebraska inheritance tax, basis adjustment), and
• essential estate documents.

Speakers will include Joe Hawbaker, agricultural law attorney, with Hawbaker Law Office, in Omaha, and Dave Goeller, deputy director, Northeast Center for Risk Management Education, University of Nebraska Department of Agricultural Economics.

Locations

(Additional dates may be announced later.)

• Greeley – December 7
• O’Neill – December 8
• York – January 9
• Bridgeport – January 25
• Chadron – January 25 (evening)
• Curtis – Feb. 17

This workshop is made possible by the Nebraska Network for Beginning Farmers and Ranchers, the Farm and Ranch Project of Legal Aid of Nebraska, USDA Farm Service Agency, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture’s Next Generation Program, and Nebraska Extension. There will be a local meal sponsor at each location.