12/10/02
Become a farmer and you have a job for life.
That’s the opinion of a majority of 43 percent of Virginia farmers who were surveyed earlier this year about their plans for retirement and for the transition of their farm businesses to the next generation. Released last week at the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting, the survey came as no surprise to many farmers.
Grey Coyne, a Fauquier County, Va., farmer said he was disappointed by the survey’s indications. “I’m disappointed that more farmers haven’t planned for the future.”
The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' Virginia Agriculture Vitality Program sponsored the survey, which was conducted by the Virginia Agricultural Statistics Service. The survey went to a random sample of 1,500 Virginia farmers and resulted in 512 responses, a return rate of 34 percent.
Almost 43 percent of farmers responding to this survey indicted that they never plan to retire. Another 33 percent plan to semi-retire, still operating the farm but receiving retirement benefits such as Social Security or pensions.
Many semi-retired farmers plan to scale back their operations or turn some of the farm management responsibilities over to others. The 24 percent of Virginia farmers who do plan to retire expect to do so at 67.9 years of age.
More than 29 percent of those respondents who are planning to retire have not discussed their retirement plans with anyone.
However, others had made their plans known: 66 percent said they had discussed their plans with family members; 11 percent had consulted an accountant; 15 percent had talked to a financial planner; 1 percent had conferred with their lenders. Almost 82 percent of retiring farmers planned to remain on the farm where they live. Only 14.5 percent of retiring farmers expect continued income from the farm; most expect to generate income from Social Security or from public or private pensions.
Seventy percent of retiring farmers had not yet identified a potential successor.
Of the 30 percent of retiring farmers who had identified a successor, most often it was a son or daughter — average age 35.6 year — 50 percent of whom currently worked off the farm. However, 64 percent of potential successors working on the farm did not have total responsibility for any enterprise on the farm; the retiring farmers retain overall control of the farming operation.
More than 35 percent of respondents indicated they do not have a will, trust or other estate plan.
However, 52 percent contribute to a pension plan, 58.5 percent have a will and 12.2 percent indicated they have other estate plans.