Announcing our “Planning for the Future of Your Farm” Fall and Winter Workshops

If you and your family are grappling with the critical issue of how to transition the farm operation and farm assets to the next generation, we can help.  Attend one of our “Planning for the Future of Your Farm” workshops this fall and winter to learn about the communication and legal strategies that provide solutions for dealing with farm transition needs and decisionmaking.  We’ve scheduled both a webinar version and several in-person options for the workshop, with the first in-person workshops coming up soon–November 29, 2023 in Mt. Orab and December 7 in Celina.  

This workshop challenges farm families to actively plan for the future of the farm business.  Learn how to have crucial conversations about the future of your farm and gain a better understanding of the strategies and tools that can help you transfer your farm’s ownership, management, and assets to the next generation. We encourage parents, children, and grandchildren to attend together to develop a plan for the future of the family and farm. 

Teaching faculty for the workshop are David Marrison, OSU Extension Farm Management Field Specialist, and Robert Moore, Attorney with the OSU Agricultural & Resource Law Program. Topics David and Robert will cover in the workshop include:

• Developing goals for estate and transition planning
• Planning for the transition of control
• Planning for the unexpected
• Communication and conflict management during farm transfer
• Federal estate tax challenges
• Tools for transferring assets
• Tools for avoiding probate
• The role of wills and trusts
• Using LLCs
• Strategies for on-farm and off-farm heirs
• Strategies for protecting the farmland
• Developing your team
• Getting your affairs in order
• Selecting an attorney 

Webinar version.  You and your family members can attend the workshop individually from the comfort of your homes.  The four-part webinar series will be February 5, 12, 19, and 26, 2024, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. via Zoom.

In-person workshops.  Our local Extension Educators are hosting in-person workshops at five regional locations across Ohio:

• November 29, 2023 – Brown County – Mt. Orab
• December 7, 2023 –  Mercer County – Celina
• January 19, 2024 –  Columbiana County – Lisbon
• January 26, 2024  – Champaign County – Urbana
• February 2, 2024 – Seneca County – Tiffin
• April 4, 2024 – Warren County – Lebanon

Registration is required.  Find registration information for all workshops at https://farmoffice.osu.edu/farm-transition-planning.

We hope you’ll join us to move forward on planning for the future of your farm! For questions about the workshop, please contact David Marrison at marrison.2@osu.edu or 740-722-6073.

Join us for Farm Office Live from Farm Science Review!

Here we are at the onset of Fall!  With it comes OSU’s annual Farm Science Review show and the kick off of our Farm Office Live season.  We’ll return to our monthly Farm Office Live webinars with a live broadcast from the Firebaugh Building at Farm Science Review this Thursday, September 21 beginning at 10:00 a.m. Our season will continue from 10–11:30 a.m. on these dates:

October 20, 2023
November 17, 2023 
December 15, 2023
January 19, 2024
February 16, 2024
March 15, 2024
April 19, 2024

Farm Office Live is a monthly webinar bringing current news and updates from our team of legal and farm management experts.  The September webinar at Farm Science Review will cover:

• Farm succession planning update — Robert Moore and David Marrison
• Budget outlook and land survey information — Barry Ward
• Beginning Farmer Tax Credit Program update — Eric Richer
• OSU Farm Business Analysis Program — Clint Schroeder
• Tax law news — Jeff Lewis

Join us on October 20 for these topics:

• State and federal legislation — Peggy Hall
• Federal farm program information — David Marrison
• Using charitable remainder trusts — Robert Moore
• Farm inputs outlook — Barry Ward
• Farm Bill update — Farm Office team
• Upcoming Farm Office Programs — Bruce Clevenger

We hope you’ll join us! There is no cost to attend the Zoom webinars, but registration is necessary.  Learn more, catch archived webinars and register for the upcoming fall and winter webinars through this page:  https://farmoffice.osu.edu/farmofficelive. 

Join Farm Office Live from OSU’s Farm Science Review on September 23

Farm Science Review is back!  OSU’s Farm Office Team will be there, and we’ll broadcast the next Farm Office Live from our farm office at the Review.  We can’t promise we’ll be able to ignore biscuits and gravy, pork tenderloins, bahama mamas, or milkshakes during Farm Office Live, but we can promise you updates on recent developments in the world of farm management and agricultural law. 

The broadcast will be on Thursday, September 23 beginning at 10 a.m.  Here’s what’s on the agenda:

• Carbon market programs and carbon agreements
•  Legislative update
• 2022 crop budgets
• 2020 Farm Business Analysis program results from crop farms
• Ohio cash rental rates
• Dairy Market Volatility Assistance Program
• Highlights of FSR and upcoming programs

Who’s on the Farm Office Live Team? OSU experts ready to help farmers, landowners and agribusiness professionals navigate the issues we all deal with in the farm office.  Our team includes:

• Peggy Kirk Hall – Agricultural Law
• David Marrison – Farm Management 
• Dianne Shoemaker – Farm Business Analysis and Dairy Production
• Barry Ward – Farm Management and Tax 

To learn more and register for Farm Office Live, visit https://farmoffice.osu.edu/farmofficelive.  Recordings of our previous Farm Office Live webinars are also available at that site.

Agritourism webinar presents opportunities, trends, and legal issues for agritourism

It wasn’t that long ago that “agritourism” was an unfamiliar term to in the agricultural community.  But agritourism has been on the rise in the U.S. and agritourism income tripled between 2002 and 2017.  Many farmers and ranchers are now familiar with the economic benefits agritourism presents.   Along with the agritourism industry’s continued growth and prospects, however, has been an evolution of laws and legal issues.

Join me with OSU Extension Educators Eric Barrett and Rob Leeds on August 19, 2020 for a free webinar on “The Evolution of Agritourism:  Current Legal Issues and Future Trends,” hosted by the National Agricultural Law Center.  We’ll examine opportunities in agritourism today and the legal challenges agritourism faces from COVID-19 and other anticipated legal issues.   Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What’s new and hot:  agritourism marketing trends and opportunities
• In the courts:  litigation against agritourism operations
• COVID-19:  legal issues for agritourism
• What may come:  anticipated legal challenges for the future
• How to deal with it:  thoughts on  managing agritourism legal risk

Additional information and a registration link for the webinar are available at https://nationalaglawcenter.org/webinars/agritourism2020/.    If you can’t make the live webinar, visit the same page later for a recorded version.

This webinar and the Ohio Ag Law Blog are supported by the USDA’s National Agricultural Library, in partnership with the National Agricultural Law Center.

Live from Farm Science Review, it’s the ag law team!

Somehow it’s mid-September already, and that can only mean one thing: it’s time for Farm Science Review!  We’re excited to get back out to the Molly Caren Agricultural Center to talk with farmers about our latest publications and answer their questions.

Check out the schedule above for the talks we will be giving on solar leasing, hemp law, and food regulations.  If you can’t make one of the presentations, or want to learn more about other topics on agricultural law, visit us at our booth in the Firebaugh Building, which is located at 384 Friday Avenue.

We will have free copies of our most popular law bulletins available, including:

• Do’s and Don’ts of Dealing with Trespassers on the Farm
• Ohio’s Line Fence Law: Frequently Asked Questions
• Creating an Enforceable Farmland Lease
• A Checklist of Farmland Lease Provisions
• Ohio’s Recreational User Statute: Limiting Liability for Hunters, Snowmobilers, and More
• Ohio’s Noxious Weed Laws
• And many more!

We will also be bringing along some of our new law bulletins, including:

• Legal or Not? Growing Industrial Hemp in Ohio
• The Farmland Owner’s Solar Leasing Checklist
• Laws that Provide Defenses for Agricultural Production Activities
• Youth Labor on the Farm: Laws Farmers Need to Know

For more information about Farm Science Review, including directions, tickets, and a list of events and exhibitors, visit http://fsr.osu.edu.  We’ll see you there!

Hiring of foreign agricultural workers is webinar topic for July 25, 2018

The next topic in the Agricultural & Food Law Consortium’s webinar series on July 25, 2018 is “Compliance with DOL and Immigration Laws and Regulations for Agricultural Businesses” featuring attorney Misty Wilson Borkowski of Cross, Gunter, Witherspoon & Galchus, P.C., in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Ms. Borkowski, who dedicates her practice to immigration law, will discuss the latest developments in the laws and regulations that agricultural businesses must comply with when hiring foreign agricultural workers.  The webinar is intended to benefit all involved with the hiring of foreign agricultural workers, including producers, farm labor contractors, and attorneys.

The financial stability of farming operations throughout the United States is heavily dependent on the proper employment of foreign agricultural workers.  Understanding the law and regulations applicable to the hiring of those workers can be a daunting task, even for those operations that regularly use foreign agricultural workers.  For example, U.S. farmers who have H-2A workers or are considering utilizing the H-2A Visas for foreign agriculture workers must comply with U.S. Department of Labor and Immigration laws and regulations with regard to recruitment, hiring, paying, withholding taxes, housing, transportation, and related matters.

The free webinar will take place on Wednesday, July 25, 2018 at Noon EST.  Go to this link for log on information.

OSU’s Agricultural & Resource Law Program is one of four partners in the Agricultural & Food Law Consortium, a national, multi-institutional collaboration designed to enhance and expand the development and delivery of authoritative, timely, and objective agricultural and food law research and information.  The Consortium hosts a series of webinars on timely and important agricultural and food law topics which are freely available to the general public and designed to be appropriate for non-attorneys as well as attorneys. For a listing of upcoming webinars and access to past webinars that have been archived, please click here.