For farmers burdened with heavy debts, historically low interest rates can seem to be salvation. Lower payments for equipment, for land loans, for bills past due — it’s life support for financially squeezed farms and, for that matter, for most other kinds of business other than banks and other lenders, which can’t get much profit […] Read more
The dangers of cheap money
Interest rates at historical lows could pose future problems for farmers
Farm Financial Planner: A Manitoba couple generates more income and pays less tax
How the couple secured retirement and transferred their remaining land to their son
In central Manitoba, a couple we’ll call Harry, 80, and Mary, 76, had a mixed grain and beef cattle farm for four decades. They sold the home quarter to their youngest son, taking back a long-term mortgage with favourable terms. They kept 320 acres, which they have rented out to a neighbour. Their plan was […] Read more
Farm Financial Planner: COVID-19 farm relief programs
Programs are blessings in bureaucratic disguise, valuable and complex
Federal relief programs for economic losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic including job losses, business interruption, nonpayment of wages, unemployment and illness are being addressed by a web of federal and provincial programs. Farmers can benefit from several plans, provided they can document losses and, in some cases, pay back some part of subsidies. What […] Read more
Farm Financial Planner: A COVID-19 plan could save the family farm
In a term of illness, a succession plan can provide for farm management
Death may be inevitable, but the new reality of COVID-19 is that it can strike long before the end of a planned retirement. Conventional preparations like having a will and a plan for distribution of farmland and machinery, inventory, and financial assets, such as stocks, bonds and bank accounts, are usually done as distant contingency […] Read more
How to pass on and preserve the family farm and generate retirement income
A couple puts an equitable plan in place for their children, only one of whom will continue to farm
A couple we’ll call Harry, 53, and Martha, 50, farm 5,500 acres in Manitoba’s Interlake region. They have three children ages 19, 20 and 24. Only the eldest, who we’ll call Bruce, is interested in taking over the farm one day. The other two see their destinies in what could be called town jobs. The […] Read more
Retirement income and inheritances
How to create a retirement plan and leave a legacy for your children
In central Manitoba, a couple we’ll call Jack, 57, and Susie, 54, have found themselves in a crisis. The couple left active farming and now rent their land to a neighbour. Sixteen years ago, Jack got a city job and sold 480 acres of the farm, half its original 960 acres, to pay debts and […] Read more
Farm Financial Planner: Retirement income and inheritances
How to create a retirement plan and leave a legacy for your children
In central Manitoba, a couple we’ll call Jack, 57, and Susie, 54, have found themselves in a crisis. The couple left active farming and now rent their land to a neighbour. Sixteen years ago, Jack got a city job and sold 480 acres of the farm, half its original 960 acres, to pay debts and […] Read more
Farm Financial Planner: Use farm corporations for shifting generational ownership
Land and machinery ownership changes are easier through corporate shells
The world economy, and Canada’s part in it, turns out to be vulnerable to COVID-19, a microscopic particle wrecking industries, supply chains, and, in particular, the financial health of many farming families. The causes of distress range from loan payments due for farm equipment and real estate, which lenders may postpone — depending on the […] Read more
Farm Financial Planner: How young farmers can fulfil financial needs now and in the future
Make a long-range plan to buy a house, educate your children and plan retirement
A couple we’ll call Molly and Frank, who are 30 and 33 years old, respectively, farm 1,400 acres of grain and pasture in Manitoba’s Interlake district. They have a new child, Emma, and are looking ahead to the time they will retire. That could be three decades in the future, but, though distant, the exercise […] Read more
Farm Financial Planner: Estate planning with an out-of-date will
Passing the farm to the next generation when Dad’s will doesn’t mention the kids
A woman named Ruth, 65, and her late husband Max, who recently passed away at 66, farmed 1,600 acres in Manitoba’s Interlake region for the last four decades. Ruth continues their mixed farming operation with 800 acres of grain and the remainder in pasture and hay for what was, before they sold them, a small […] Read more
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