The 2024 Farm Futures Business Summit, set to take place Jan. 9-11 at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Coralville, Iowa, will offer dynamic breakout sessions designed to help farm families become better business managers and smoothly transition farms to the next generation.

Summit keynote speaker Brooke Didier Starks will coach attendees on managing emotional family dynamics and personal feelings around farm transitions. She is an estate planning attorney with more than 20 years of experience helping farm families with wills and trusts, wealth preservation, farm and business succession planning, and probate and estate administration. Brooke’s candid, down-to-earth style has helped hundreds of farm families get ‘unstuck,’ and move toward creating the legacies they want to leave for their families and communities.

“By default a legacy is something that doesn’t exist until you’re gone,” says estate planning attorney Brooke Didier Starks. “Sure, you’ve heard the expression ‘living legacy,’ but at the end of the day, legacy is how you will be remembered after you are gone.”

“You are running a multi-million dollar business so you need to implement good business structure,” she says. “Building true legacy means creating a plan for generations that you may never even meet. Farm clients often plan for their spouses and kids and even to save a little taxes, but real legacy transcends the here and now for lasting impact on the farm and into the generations of the future."

“The hardest part is laying the framework and then moving out of the way to let it flourish.”

The 2024 summit is packed with deep dive sessions centered on business leadership, family dynamics, soft people skills, farm labor retention, grain marketing, farm office automation, and professionalizing your farm. It also includes time to meet other growers and build your network. Here’s a sampling:

Gold medal presentation

The summit will kick off with an appearance by Gold Medal Olympic wrestler Dan Gable, an Iowa native and former college wrestling champion. Gable won every major championship available to an American wrestler, climaxed by a gold medal in the 1972 Olympic Games. As a coach, his Hawkeyes won a record nine consecutive NCAA team titles. In December of 2020, Dan Gable was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has authored several books including New York Times Best Selling books, “A Wrestling Life” and “A Wrestling Life 2.”

Gable knew how to lead because he knew how to listen. Even if you’ve never wrestled, summit attendees will be touched by Gable’s awe-inspiring journey from small-town Iowa to Olympic gold medalist. At this opening session learn powerful lessons from the life of the greatest wrestling figure in American history.

Go to farmfuturessummit.com/en/Home.html for agenda updates, registration, and hotel details. If you’re looking to meet other growers and get better at all aspects of farm family business, don’t miss this event!