On-boarding the farm kids

It’s an all-too-common scenario. The farm family sits down together around the kitchen table. It’s time to talk. Maybe you could even call it a meeting.

Grandpa thinks it’s a bunch of hooey. No one ever had to sit and talk for hours in his day. If the kids had enough work to do, we wouldn’t have to do it now either.

Dad also thinks it a total waste of time. Who says things haven’t run smoothly enough? Besides, no one else seem to realize how much is actually at stake. And Mom is worried it will end up in a big fight like the last time they tried to discuss something contentious on the farm.

Also at the table are the two sons, fidgeting nervously because they’re wondering whether the other brother is going to try to score some points at their expense, and wondering if they should get their jab in first.

And then there’s Sis, who’s been getting annoying trying to convince the rest that some changes are needed, and the family needs a process to talk it through to make sure it happens.

The fireworks are ready. All it needs is a match.

That’s been the reality that Andy Junkin has seen far too many times in his 15 years of helping farm families learn how to work together and avoid the pitfalls that can cause crises.

What’s lacking in almost all those cases is a kind of discipline, Junkin says. “They lack the discipline to meet regularly, so they tend to fight fires instead of doing fire prevention.”

Junkin has just launched a new program called “Coming Home to Farm” with the goal of smoothing the integration of the next generation into the farm operation. He piloted it with the Washington Farm Bureau last year and now it’s being promoted by several farm organizations and farm businesses across the U.S.

The program, available free online, is designed to provide tools and assistance for young farmers coming home to farm.

In fact, though, 80 per cent of the people who have signed up for the course so far aren’t exactly new. They’ve been awkwardly farming for more than 10 years with their families. Clearly, letting things take care of themselves isn’t always working.

Junkin, who was born and raised on a seventh-generation farm at Bobcaygeon, Ont., has experienced first-hand how dysfunctional a farm family can be. He almost hung himself in the barn on his 35th birthday after years of frustration and conflict over the transition of the farm which led to him to what he calls an “emotional health” crisis. 

After quitting the farm, he founded Agriculture Strategy and in 2010 opened an office in Mitchell, Ont., from where he helped farm families across Canada and the U.S. In 2017, he met a Michigan farm girl, Bernadette, and they married and settled on a small farm in Iowa, where Junkin continues to run his business, which he has rebranded as Stubborn.Farm, because, he says, what he does for a living is basically “fix stubborn.”

Below is an overview of Junkin’s approach to on-boarding with the help of farm meetings. Next issue, Country Guide brings you the story of a farming family in Manitoba who have also learned to make farm meetings work for them.

Coming home to farm

“As a son or daughter comes home to the farm from college and/or other careers, it’s important to set the routine and discipline of meeting on a regular basis,” Junkin says. “The whole purpose of this course is to get farm families to identify a couple of critical things that have got to happen, and that the family has to adapt to as part of a disciplined routine.”

The farm meeting is the foundation for that process, and a catalyst for discussion and decision-making that will lead to successful business partnerships and more cohesive and effective decision-making. But it does require a change in mindset, and that is often the biggest obstacle for farm families.

“The problem many farm families face is with transitioning from a parent/child to a professional relationship,” Junkin says. “As a son or daughter comes home, the concern shouldn’t be about who gets what, or how to avoid paying taxes with estate planning. The principal concern should be, how are we going to work together as a partnership.”

Where not to start

Each individual involved is going to have to start honestly assessing themselves and asking themselves some difficult questions about their personal expectations and life goals before they can hope to develop good communication with the rest of their partners.

First, though, they need to eliminate the “I’m smarter than you attitude,” Junkin says.

“We have a real issue with the mentality of ‘I’m smarter than you’ in agriculture and as a result we have people butting heads and pulling the farm in different directions.”

That’s why there needs to be a specific time and place set aside on a regular basis where, instead of just talking, the family actually learns to listen, tries to understand each other’s thinking, and adopts the art of brainstorming.

“Everything that you can do to improve the quality of decision-making on your farm is going to skyrocket your profitability and make farming with family fun again,” Junkin says.

The next thing everyone needs in preparation for family meetings is to put their pride in their back pocket.

“Pride is what makes family farms but it’s also is what kills them,” Junkin says. “Humility is absolutely critical.”

But there’s also a huge payoff, he says. “If you’re able to get rid of that ego, then for the next 30 years, farming with family is fun.”

The main principles

Success requires three basic fundamentals: a common goal, principles as to how you will work together and a process for making decisions.

“Too often we’re blaming each other instead of actually problem-solving,” says Junkin. “The problem is not the problems themselves; the problem is the way we problem-solve.”

“They are having a crisis working together,” Junkin says. “Through this process, they are able to identity one or two problems that are like a log jam, and once they unbreak the log jam, they are able to get things back on track. Then I will sit down with each individual from the family for up to an hour for free and with the family for two hours.”

The Coming Home to Farm program, covers a number of basic principles to help get families meeting regularly so they can get better at working and making decisions together. Some of the essentials include:

• Personal goals

“The first questions anyone on the family farm needs to ask themselves are: ‘Am I doing this just because my family wants me to, or because I want to? What sacrifices am I willing to make to make my dreams a reality?’’’

In Coming Home to Farm, each person writes down two things that really matter to them.

“If one of those things isn’t farming, then what is it, and go for it,” Junkin says.

Having a crystal-clear goal of what you want to accomplish in your life is critical for success, and all the partners need to be aligned with that.

• The farm’s goals

In the program’s first exercise, family members sort through how they can figure out what is the most important thing they want to see achieved on the farm. This becomes the goal that they all work towards, and every decision is measured against it.

It will be different for each farm, and may be related to profitability, productivity, sustainability or any number of different areas, but it has to be agreed upon by all as the most important thing they can work towards to ensure the continued success of the farm.

• Learning to problem-solve

At each meeting, everyone must identify one problem about how they are working together, and one problem related to production, and decide how they will solve them.

“If you identify two improvements a week over 52 weeks that is over 100 opportunities to skyrocket profitability and improve relationships and create a culture where you listen to each other’s ideas and can problem-solve together,” Junkin says. 

• Time management

Junkin believes that how someone spends 18 hours of their day will dictate where they will be in 18 years. “When we stop abusing time like it’s infinite (by working harder) and treat it like it’s finite (as if it’s money), we will turn things around for farm profitability and family life,” he says.

Towards this end, each person should answer the following questions: If you had 10 per cent more time, how would you spend it to improve the quality of your family life and on your business to improve farm profitability? How can you better invest the time you do have to be able to do those things?

• Getting on the same page

Farming success, Junkin says, is 99 per cent perspiration and one per cent inspiration. Farmers generally have no trouble with the 99 per cent perspiration but don’t spend one per cent of their time discussing their “inspiration” with the family.

“At least one per cent of the time, a family should sit down and think outside the box,” Junkin says.

The family, together, has to come up with five values that they need to hold to, to help make the farm more successful. Then they come up with five values that have to change to take the farm to the next level. These become the 10 core values of the farm.

• Improving yourself

Junkin also believes that everyone on the farm has five per cent of their character that they need to tweak to be more successful.

Each person identifies three of their own bad habits, and three habits of a partner that, if they tweaked them, would make them more pleasant to work with and make the farm more profitable.

“Ask yourselves, if all of the partners made one improvement to their character each month, how would the farm be different in five years time as a place to work and in profitability?” Junkin says.