Family Business Matters       05/21 04:58

   Build Staying Power Into Your Family Farm, Ranch or Rural Business

   Family farms and ranches face substantial risks. Building resilience 
requires valuing family bonds over business preservation, exploring all options 
openly, reframing difficulties positively and maintaining realistic optimism 
while confronting harsh realities.

Lance Woodbury
DTN Farm Business Adviser

   Family-owned farms and ranches operate in an environment of substantial 
risk. Weather events, market volatility, crop or animal diseases, and labor 
challenges pose existential threats to the business. Individual risks, such as 
health issues or accidents, can arise without warning to rob us of important 
relationships and steal our long-held hopes and dreams.

   What does resiliency -- the capacity to withstand or recover from 
difficulties -- mean in the context of a family working the land together? How 
does a family partnership bounce back from challenging situations? Consider the 
following practices and mindsets to help you endure the situations that 
jeopardize your family business.

   -- Decide what family cohesion is worth. Facing difficult business 
circumstances strains even the best family relationships. Remember the 
importance of family bonds and how they have helped your business in the past. 
What best preserves those connections now? Perhaps it requires exiting a part 
of the business or selling an asset. Maybe someone needs to leave the business 
to save his or her relationship with you as a family member.

   Preserving family unity, even if it brings changes to the business in the 
short run, helps with the emotional support needed to move forward. On the 
other hand, if you save the business but lose the family relationships, have 
you truly succeeded?

   -- Clarify your options. There are usually several options when facing 
difficult circumstances. Having an open and honest conversation about such 
alternatives, and their benefits and consequences, can help normalize various 
paths you might take. However, families are often hesitant to consider some 
options because of family legacy or history.

   Resiliency requires withholding phrases like, "We've always done it this 
way" and instead focusing on different ideas and approaches that may help you 
thrive in the future. Be careful about holding on to the past so tightly that 
you strangle future opportunities.

   -- Reframe the situation. Sometimes, the ability to bounce back from a 
difficult situation requires changing your view. We've all heard people say 
some burdens were a "blessing in disguise" or that a metaphorical storm cloud 
had a "silver lining." The lessons one learns through difficulty can shape the 
future of the family business in a positive way. Even in the Bible, years after 
Joseph was mistreated by his brothers, he reframed how he saw the situation by 
saying, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good." (Genesis 
50:20).

   In my own family's experience, when it was clear no one was returning to our 
ranch, the decision to sell land was reframed from a depressing statement of, 
"We've held it for the last 100 years," to an enthusiastic expression: "Let's 
make sure it goes to a young family who has the potential to own it for the 
next 100 years."

   -- Recall the Stockdale Paradox. You may remember James Stockdale as Ross 
Perot's running mate in the presidential election of 1992. Stockdale's 
character was shaped as a prisoner of war during Vietnam, serving for more than 
seven years as the most senior U.S. officer in the infamous North Vietnamese 
prison camp nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton."

   Stockdale is remembered today for his statement on how to face dire 
circumstances: "You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end 
-- which you can never afford to lose -- with the discipline to confront the 
most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

   His point, and the paradox, is that you must be realistic about your 
difficulties while believing you will get through the situation. Such faith 
provides the courage to keep going during the most challenging times.

   The resilient mindset you bring to your difficulties affects your family for 
generations to come. Consider your relationships, clarify your options, reframe 
the situation and keep the faith that you will indeed prevail.

   **

   To read more stories from DTN/Progressive Farmer's "Rural Resilience" 
series, visit the Spotlight on Rural Resilience homepage here: 
https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/farm-life/article/2026/05/08/dtns-
special-coverage-challenges.

   Lance Woodbury can be reached at lance.woodbury@pinionglobal.com




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