Join UW-Madison Extension Farm Management Outreach Specialists Joy Kirkpatrick, Steph Plaster, Kelly Wilfert, and Kevin Bernhardt as they lead important discussions and helpful activities in the Cultivating Your Farm’s Future workshop series. This series provides tools and resources for farmers who are ready to start their succession plans.
Cultivating Your Farm’s Future explores the three-step process of planning your business succession:
- Where are you now?
- Where do you want to be?
- How do you get there?
The workshops prepare you to shape and communicate your ideas about the future of the farm and business and also save time by having crucial conversations before visiting with professionals.
Who should attend?
This series is for farm businesses and farm families ready to shape the future ownership of their farm. If you are the owner generation, you may be wondering how to transfer to the next generation or develop a fair inheritance distribution plan. If you are the next generation, you may have questions or ideas about your future role in the farm business or how to make it financially feasible and realistic for your goals. Multiple farm/family members are encouraged to attend together.
What topics are covered?
- Communication preferences and how to talk about the farm’s future
- Common tensions around farm succession
- Inheritance distributions – Is equal fair?
- Financials for farm succession
- Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats – SWOT analysis
- Estate planning including probate and estate tax
- Wills, trusts, and business entities
- Setting goals and action steps
When are these workshops?
February 2026
Thursday evenings, 6:30–8 p.m., February 5, 12, 19, 26, 2026. This series also offers an optional action-planning session on Thursday, March 19, 2026.
Where are the workshops held?
All sessions are held live via Zoom, so participants can join from anywhere! Each week participants will receive an email with homework assignments. The homework is designed to help gather information and prepare for the discussions and activities during the live Zoom sessions. The homework is a mix of short videos, worksheets or reading assignments. Hard copies of program materials will be mailed to each participant before the first class.
Registration details
The cost to register is $150/per farm. Multiple farm/family members are encouraged to participate—all for $150/farm. The registration fee covers one Cultivating Your Farm’s Future workbook and one Cultivating Continuity book per farm, a participant manual for each person registered, access to digital course materials, and four (with an optional fifth) live zoom classes. Additional Cultivating Your Farm’s Future workbooks can be purchased for $15/each and Cultivating Continuity books for $25/each.
Register online at uwmadison.eventsair.com/farm2526/reg/Site/Register
The registration deadline is January 16, 2026, to ensure participants receive the mailed materials in time for the first class. Registration is limited to 20 farms.
Even if you have attended other transition, estate, or succession planning classes, consider attending this program to get a START on YOUR succession plan.
For more information contact Joy Kirkpatrick, Farm Succession Outreach Specialist, joy.kirkpatrick@wisc.edu, 608.263.3485