In 2019 I was contacted by a farming couple who requested some guidance of how to start the farm succession process with their four sons who were in their 20s. The husband had already started some planning steps with a brother with whom there was shared equipment and land. The couple were looking for advice of the best approach to further the discussion with the brother as well as with their sons.

When there’s trust, safety, and I have permission to manage the process, all the people involved in a farm succession process can relax a bit. It’s hard to create, when you're managing a perceived sense of disturbance, or threat, or feel like you might be attacked. All of that stifles the creative process, and you can't get to agreement without being creative.

One of the most important things in farm facilitation mediations and facilitated meetings is trust, which is the precursor to being emotionally safe, which is what you need to express yourself and to create. As a facilitator, I also need to get permission from people to be managing the process. That’s about consent.

We can't forget that this is an important milestone, it’s a cultural milestone within a family. Many other cultural milestones - like weddings, funerals - they’re honoured. There’s a celebration that comes with it. And this is another one, but it’s not always recorded. So I make this suggestion to people - mark the milestone, create something. What are the old photos? What are the old sayings, from the cultural leaders of your group? Sayings, pictures, relics, memories - they’re important to collect, document, record.

There’s several different types of competencies, or professions, that you want to be involved in the farm succession process. People that help you explore the ‘many paths’. The farm succession process is usually a multidisciplinary model: many disciplines coming together, assisting a group of people - a farming business - progress the farming asset from one generation to the next.

“I've been a participant of a farm succession process, with a big farming family, which I married into. The family farm was being migrated from one generation to the next. It was a long but rewarding process, and it needed a lot of detail, and talking, because it was a big group. There were many people involved. There was a series of meetings, and we had a meeting facilitator. That was important, and helpful.

What does the farm succession planning process look like, and what is involved? It’s not always a clear linear path, and sometimes it makes sense to do some things before others. For example it is preferable to clarify personal and family issues and goals before attempting to finalise financial planning, business structures and inheritance. There is a list of considerations that we like to work through. Let’s go a bit deeper into what’s involved in the broader succession process:

At MediatingWorks we use a model developed by Harvard University in which each session is viewed through seven distinct elements which are common to all negotiations:

What are the seven elements? Let’s explore.

Mediation is a facilitated negotiation between two or more parties with the mediator managing the negotiation process. The mediator uses a combination of individual sessions initially and later joint sessions to facilitate discussion between the parties in order to arrive at a resolution. The mediator is a process manager and directs the parties to explore several steps, to get to (hopefully!) a desired outcome for all parties.

MediatingWorks is uniquely placed to work with farming families looking to transition ownership of the farm, because of Gregory Dale’s distinct experience across psychology, counselling, mediation and negotiation. He is also a farmer, who has been through the farm succession process himself.