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By Alice McFarlane

Family Farm

Developing communication skills on the family farm

Jan 7, 2020 | 12:49 PM

Family businesses need to build a solid foundation. Strong communication and management skills are a good place to start.

Farm Credit Canada (FCC) will host a workshop in Humboldt on Thursday where participants will take home eight tools for transitioning labour, management, leadership and ownership.

FCC agriculture transition specialist Patti Durand said it’s important to honour the family and the session will emphasize farmers are in the people business, not just the production business. She said this will all occur under the guidance of an experienced consultant, speaker and farmer.

“We are really excited to be welcoming Jolene Brown who is an award-winning, well known farm advisor and speaker from the U.S. She’s been doing this for many years,” Durand told farmnewsNOW. “The workshop is really geared for farm families to work on their business instead of just in their business. Brown will share some good tools and advice to put to work in their business right away.”

Durand said having families talk to each other in a thoughtful way is sometimes difficult.

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“I think one of the things that I really like about Jolene and admire in her messaging is talking about farm family communication, amongst generations, amongst people as the senior partners, the junior partners and and how they work together,” Durand said. “It’s a real shift in a farm so getting some coaching on that. She brings experience to the table that can be really powerful and I’m excited that people are going to have this opportunity.”

Another part of the session will be discussing the sticky issue of farm transition. Brown will moderate a panel discussion in the afternoon bringing together a lawyer, an accountant and financial planner.

“The idea being the audience can ask questions because I think we certainly hear customers may be feeling frustrated that they’re a little bit uncertain about what they want to do for transition. But they don’t even know what to ask and they are hesitant to make an appointment for something that they’re uncertain about,” Durand said. “This is a chance to just ask those questions. Jolene’s gonna take the lead on that and we’re all really excited about it.”

There are still seats available for the workshop but registering in advance is necessary to ensure the organizers have all of the materials prepared and meals ordered.

“They can register for free. We really want to put these tools in the hands of our customers and all farm families are welcome,” she said.

The FCC workshop is Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Jubilee Hall in Humboldt.

Participants can register here or call 1-888-332-3301.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF