To answer this question about retiring: I am retiring, not retired. While we have transferred the properties and some of the cattle to the next generation, we as the elder generation are still on the place trying to give way to a refreshed management.
We find purpose in being around for our successors to lighten the workload or the decision-making about stewarding the land and livestock.
A part of the Cariboo Cattlemen’s Association organization in our region, we are planning another workshop and bringing in outside resource people to inform and motivate ranchers to get on with this idea of succession planning.
Time does march on and we elders have dimming acuity of mind which makes decision-making more difficult. Our members want details – legal and financial - of how to do this planning.
However, often it is communications within families and businesses that gets in the way of action planning for transition.
We all know how difficult family meetings and individual interactions can be! Underlying stress can exacerbate difficulties and enhance misunderstandings which may lead to conflict.
Environmental stress - climate, business/financial - is always there made more intense with the wild variations of weather and it seems regulations (often for good reason) an increased costs of taxes and inflation of inputs to our operations are getting in the way of farm viability.
I have written in previous articles about the whole issue of mental health which raises its head more and more often in the farm press. It is not just individual but also community mental health that is impacting us.
Exercise (constant moving), healthy food and good social relations underpin our health.
Recently, we had a lot of rain. Now we need some sun and heat to grow our crops and sprout our gardens.
I had to fight the “enough already” feeling about the rain. I know we need even more to replenish groundwater. As I stumbled through mud on some low ground moving cattle the other day (it was too wet for a horse or ATV in some places) I thought about my own feeling of well-being - exercise and purpose in getting cattle onto fresh feed - and wondered if a trip on the El Comino or a South Chilcotin mountain trails might have been better!
My conclusion was to take activity as much as I can, not too much, but enough for healthy mind putting the stressful things into perspective.
That same conclusion could be a guide for succession and retirement planning on a ranch or farm. It is best to get an early start before a calamity forces the issue.
David Zirnhelt is a rancher in the Cariboo and president of the Cariboo Cattlemen’s Association
