FOR RETIRING FARMERS AND THEIR FAMILIES

Who could run your farm when you step back?

Finding the right person to run your farm is the hard part, and it often starts with someone who turns up to lend a hand. Let people know you're looking, because nobody can put their hand up until you say so. Ageing on Farm, the free guide for retiring farmers from Cultivate Farms, sets out seven ways to make the arrangement work.

Tell your partner first, and your children if you have them. If your partner disagrees, the search waits. Then talk to people you already know. A public notice waits until your family has agreed.

When you're stepping back, the wish to hand the farm to someone worthy is strong.

Finding that person yourself can be done. It takes persistence and time, and it means using your own network and the networks of other like minded people.

Ageing on Farm, a free guide for retiring farmers, has a whole part on it, with planning questions to start.

Know what you want first

Write down who you want and what you're offering before you talk to anyone. A good young farmer has a choice of places.

They often want a house or a second dwelling nearby, and a lease or share farm long enough to build something. They also want improvement rights that mean something, a fair management income, someone to learn from and a fair way out.

The house you live in stays out of the offer unless your lawyer and your accountant agree you can spare it, and your partner too, if you have one.

Watch who turns up

If someone starts turning up to lend a hand, take notice. That may be how it starts. Over time, talk turns to the farm's future, without anyone forcing it. If it's real work, pay for it, and ask your insurer what cover you need before the first day.

Four places to look, closest first

1. The people you already know. A shearer, a young farmer from next door, someone who has helped out for years. Say what you're thinking and listen. Pay anyone who does real work.

2. The people who know people. Your accountant, your lawyer, your agronomist and other retiring farmers. Go and see the young farmers in your district at work, through someone who can introduce you.

3. Putting the word out. Only once your family has agreed. A local paper story, and a simple page with no address, mobile number, farm name, hectares or photos of the house.

4. Bringing in the town. A quiet morning tea, a town hall meeting or a farm forum, and a mayor who gets others behind it. Open for Farming is the guide to put in front of them. It is public, so go there when you're ready for the district to know.

Each place gets hard in its own way. The guide says where. Read 'Before you say yes', below, before you speak to anyone.

Before you say yes

Check before you commit, from the first conversation.

Don't sign anything on the spot, lend money, guarantee a loan, give a power of attorney or add anyone to an account. Until the full arrangement is signed, your bank accounts, the title and the key to your house stay with you. No one moves into the house or a cottage until your lawyer has drafted it.

Meet in town first, with someone in your corner, and leave the first visit to the farm until you've checked them. Find their referee's number yourself and ring, then ask that referee for one other person who knows their work. Ask your lawyer what checks to run on anyone you don't know. Ask for a farm plan and the figures, and take them to your accountant.

Start with a paid trial season, before any lease, share farm or path to buy in. Give it an end date and a way for either of you to stop, and have your lawyer draft it before anyone starts. Stock, title and the house stay as they are, and ordinary farm work carries on. Ask your insurer what cover you need if they get hurt, before the first day.

If anyone wants your family kept out, or tells you to hurry, stop and call your accountant or lawyer. If none of the people who come forward is right, you stop.

What you'll find

Finding the right farmer on your own is hard. Some owners find the person. Some look for a long time and never find the right one.

And finding someone is only half of it, because the years after the start are when an arrangement holds or falls apart.

Someone alongside

For some owners, the person they found is the one they carry the years with, with their own lawyer and accountant beside them.

Some owners would rather not carry it alone. Both of the ways below are ours, so weigh them as you'd weigh any offer, and have your own lawyer and accountant look first.

We only find a farmer when we can stay alongside for the long run.

If you'd rather not carry the farm on your own, we can carry it for you: we find the right next generation farmer, set up the arrangement that fits, whether sharefarming, a lease or another way, and look after it with you for as long as you want. It works where your farm can carry a good farmer and the numbers work for both of you.

A good farmer runs the place under a sharefarming agreement made directly with you, and Cultivate Farms holds that arrangement and makes it work: each of you takes an agreed share of what the farm produces, and we are never in the middle of the money.

We bring you farmers we've checked, a choice of them where we can. You meet them before anything is signed, and nothing starts until the right farmer is in place. Nobody is placed or changed on your country without you. If that sounds right, get in touch at cultivatefarms.com/contact.

The Cultivate Trust is the other way. Your farm moves into the Trust, which runs it on your behalf with the right farmer on it, and an independent licensed trustee holds the farm. Your family keeps a stake and a say in how it's farmed. Before the Trust could ever sell the farm, it comes to your family first, for as long as you hold a stake.

It is a bigger commitment than a five year lease, and Your Farm, Your Legacy sets out what you keep and what you hand over.

The full guide, Ageing on Farm, is free at cultivatefarms.com/resources.

You can build your own plan at cultivatefarms.com/plan.