by Hollie Rudy
Ask any person behind a family farming operation, and you’ll hear how the economics are struggling to keep pace with today’s realities. Running a family farm requires that you either work a full-time job and farm on the side, or dedicate your entire life to 14-, 16-, 18-hour days, with retirement an obscure dream.
It’s relentless work that demands sacrifice just to maintain what you have.
I understand this reality intimately. I recently made the very difficult decision that my family farm — an 1,800-acre row crop and cow-calf operation — would not be passed down to the next generation. For us, we could not see how farming would remain a viable option for my kids.
Forty years ago, the lifestyle we lived didn’t require as much to support a family as it does now. The way we live now is different, and the reality is that today’s family farm just cannot provide what a multigenerational family farm needs without significant sacrifice.
Hard decisions
In reaching our decision, we were forced to redefine what success truly means. For years, I believed success was measured by breaking my back simply to break even. I had reached a point in my life where I was willing, without hesitation, to work two jobs because I could not imagine letting go of the family farm. Sacrifice was not optional; it was assumed.
No one could have convinced me there was another path. I was determined to make it work — to keep the farm in my family — because that was all I had ever known. It was only later that I began to understand the true cost of pursuing this version of “success” in family farming.
Looking back, I believe my children witnessed the sacrifices I made and chose to define success differently for themselves. They value work-life balance and want a lifestyle — and a level of long-term viability — that family-farming operations often cannot provide.
I’m at peace with that because I didn’t want my pride to stand in the way of financial stability, either for myself or for them. After working the way I did for as long as I did, the personal and financial rewards I expected never fully materialized. I don’t want that for my children.
I want them to live lives that are fulfilling, viable and sustainable — lives that keep them healthy, happy and balanced.
After careful consideration and ongoing evaluation of our operation’s financial health, we realized that off-farm work would afford the most growth and opportunity to live the way we want. We stayed ahead of our long-term planning. We started having conversations when our kids were still teenagers. We were fortunate that our farm was financially stable.
Because we were proactive, we were in a position to choose our path forward rather than having it forced upon us, which many family farms encounter. And it turns out that off-farm work was the best avenue for us.
I remember my son asking me, “What would your grandpa think if he knew it ended here?” I told my son that my grandfather lived through the ’80s. He had a farm sale just to hang on to what he could. He knew sacrifices are required in this industry.
There are different levels of sacrifice involved whether you a) keep the family name on the farm or b) choose farming as your livelihood. When we fully understood what continuing with the latter would require, the decision to close that chapter became easier.
We knew we were not willing to risk everything to continue farming.
Insights guide the journey
Even though we're no longer actively involved in the farm sector of our family operation, the peace I feel today, that’s real. And that's all the justification I need to assure my kids we made the right decision. We’re OK.
For others facing similar decisions, I'd offer three insights that guided our journey:
1. Take an analytical approach. Look at the data your operation is producing. Analyze the last five to eight years of records. Consider all the operational and family-living expenses you’ll face. It’s the cost of doing business, but also the cost of things like health insurance, taxes and monthly bills. Look over all the numbers closely, and consider the financial feasibility of continuing your operation before you make any decisions.
2. Commit to transparent communication. Anytime you’re making big decisions, you need to have clear and open communication, but especially when grappling with something that’s so emotionally charged and that involves a larger group of people. You can’t make assumptions. You need to have direct, honest conversations with people in the generation before and after you to understand all the options and how a transition will affect different people in different ways. These are tough but essential conversations you simply cannot afford to bypass. They provide a roadmap to weigh the pros and cons from multiple points of view.
3. Redefine success. The biggest variable to make clear is what success means to your family. You must have a definitive outlook here to know if continuing to farm makes sense or if, alternatively, you should consider other vocations and instead preserve the land in the family name. Once I realized that working two full-time jobs, one on the farm and one off, was what it was going to take to have a successful farming operation, I knew it was time to make a change.
These life-changing decisions carry a heavy emotional burden. For me personally, the decision brought tears as I thought about the fact that there is no future for our family farm, and that this part of our family legacy is just going to die.
It’s gut-wrenching. But I remind myself and my kids that we’re leaving the farm, but we’re not leaving our roots behind.
All of us continue to be involved in ag; we’ve just started a new chapter where that involvement looks different because we aren’t beholden to the daily work of operating a family farm. Most important, we can look back on our family’s legacy with pride and move forward with a renewed sense of peace and happiness in what our future holds.
Rudy is a territory manager with Nutrien Financial. She provides financing expertise to growers throughout Minnesota and the Dakotas to increase their buying power and maximize every opportunity for success. Learn more at nutrienfinancial.com.