County initiatives aim to address farm succession shortfall

WELLINGTON COUNTY – Just 276 of Wellington County’s 2,600 farm operations have written succession plans.

That shortfall, based on the 2021 Agriculture Census, has Wellington County officials concerned.

To try and ensure farms are here to stay, the county secured a Rural Economic Development grant and launched the “Your Farm, Your Future” succession planning guidebook.

It also facilitated a succession workshop series between November and February and is also providing access to two “Farmers’ Bridge” online courses.

“We punch above our weight really in terms of the kinds of farms we have, the soils we have, so we don’t want to lose that,” county Smart Cities project manager Justine Dainard told the Advertiser.

The majority (74 per cent) of farms in Wellington County are owned, rather than rented or leased. More than half (61%) involve livestock and the remainder (39%) are involved in growing crops, according to a Wilton Consulting Group study commissioned by the Wellington Federation of Agriculture and published in 2023.

The county is home to 524,000 acres of farmland, and the study found the agriculture sector here contributed $841 million to Ontario’s gross domestic product in 2021 and was connected to more than 6,000 full-time jobs.

“We really value our farm families, they’re hugely important to the stability of our region,” Dainard said.

Without a succession plan, farm operators may lose agency and find themselves forced to make sudden decisions amid chaos.

Maggie Van Camp, a consultant hired by the county to help produce its planning guidebook, said her husband died in a farm accident 13 years ago.

“I sat there and went, ‘Oh my God, what would this look like without a succession plan; without a written, signed shareholders agreement, and a will,’” she recalled.

About 1,000 farm operators in Wellington County are expected to retire or transition out of farming in the next seven years, based on RBC’s “Farmers Wanted” report, which suggests 40% of farmers in Canada will retire by 2033.

'A compromise decision with your values intact'

With an outgoing generation of farmers now living well into retirement age, Van Camp said this is the first generation needing fulsome succession plans.

“We’re in a cross-over time which is very powerful,” Van Camp said. If it’s done well, she added, “the future of farming in Canada is fantastic.”

With help from experts across Ontario and the prairies, Van Camp focused on specific questions to inform three scenarios in the county’s guidebook — outgoing generations with and without a successor, and non-family succession.

Van Camp was BDO Canada’s national director of agriculture for six years, working alongside BDO’s business transition team.

Though financial and legal solutions were sound, she discovered communication among farm families was lacking. She co-founded Loft32, a Guelph-based communications firm, helping farmers navigate succession.

“Most farmers don’t want to talk about [retirement]; it’s a hard topic for us to understand and sort of get our head around,” Van Camp said.

Succession for Van Camp, who is going through the process to pass a Durham County broiler operation onto her son, will look different than it will for a farmer divvying up thousands of acres of cash crops among several children of different ages.

Imperative to the process, Van Camp said, is collaborating around the transfer of tasks, management and ownership – along with a retirement plan.
“Many of these farmers struggle with that because they have been operating as sole proprietors,” she said.

“This is truly a compromise decision with your values intact.”

Walter Grose knew he wanted to take over Ray and Ruth Grose’s 100-acre farm and manufacturing operation in Alma when he graduated high school in 1978.

'What Wellington County is doing is very unique'

Then known as Raymond’s Welding. Husky Farm Equipment is now a well-known manufacturer selling liquid manure handling equipment across the world.

Grose owned the operation with his brother Gord for 20 years before retiring in January 2025.

“You work alongside of your family … you have lunch with them on Sunday, and then you go to theatre with them on Friday, and then you work with them nine hours a day,” Grose said.

He and Gord ran the operation, but Ray and Ruth still came to work every day. It wasn’t until Grose was 59 that he made his first solely independent decision.

Grose was among a four-member panel at the third and final county workshop session on Feb. 12 at the GrandWay Events Centre in Elora.

He echoed a piece of advice picked up from Van Camp: “Get out of the way.”

Grose suggests getting a will and making decisions now, instead of trying to figure out what to do with a farm in your 80s, as one participant spoke about at the workshop.

In the year leading up to retirement, Grose began handing off tasks.

“Somebody asked a question, and I said, ‘Okay, wait a minute, I don’t need to deal with this. We need to set somebody else up to deal with this,’” he said.

His eldest son, Nicholas, now owns Husky with Tayler Black.

Grose’s youngest, Andrew, is likely to take over the farm as Grose and his wife Sharon step away and relinquish control.

Van Camp said the county’s approach is giving farmers greater agency and more control over their future.

“What Wellington County is doing is very unique,” she said.

Dainard added the county is looking to take lessons learned beyond agricultural succession planning and into small business succession planning.

“Now we have to go back to the drawing board and see if we should be doing workshops regularly,” she said.

To access the county’s full suite of farm succession planning resources, visit: wellington.ca/transitionplanning.