College students interested in going back to their family farms got a lot of advice at the 2017 Beginning Farmer and Rancher Symposium held recently at South Dakota State University.

Shannon Ferrell, Oklahoma State University agricultural economist, was the keynote speaker. The panel of South Dakota farmers included John Seffrood, Summit; Phil Eggers, Renner; and Frank Kralicek, Yankton, S.D. The panel of South Dakota bankers included Wes Chambers, Farm Credit Services, Brian Gilbert, First National Bank, and Justin Gary, Wells Fargo.

Here are 10 of the top takeaways from this year’s symposium:

1. Stay in school, graduate and get a job. There are a lot of good jobs available in agriculture, and the industry needs young, bright people, according to Seffrood, who worked in Chicago with his wife for several years before they returned to South Dakota to build a dairy that his father-in-law helped finance. You’ll be better off if you work for someone else and learn how to make your own money before going back to the family farm. The experience will be invaluable, and will pay off in the long-run.

2. Be ready to work off the farm when you go back. There will be plenty of opportunities in your community, said Eggers, who is a partner with his father in a Hereford cattle business. Eggers also sells real estate, helps run online cattle auctions, and prepares cattle for shows and sales. You’ll have to be patient and wait for them to come to you. In the meantime, be active and visible in your community, he advised.

3. Don’t expect your parents to believe all the things you learn about farm succession planning at school. “It’s hard for some parents to consider someone an expert if they have changed their diapers,” Ferrell said. Rather than trying to convince parents yourself of the need to create a succession plan, ask someone they know, respect and would consider an expert to talk to them.

4. Be respectful when talking about taking over the farm. For example, don’t make it sound as if want your parents to retire early and leave the farm to you. Pitch the idea that they’d be the chairman of the board. In that role, they are involved the big picture decisions, but would be free of the day-to-day details.

5. Production skills are important, but they alone aren’t enough to succeed, according to the lenders. You’ll also need top notch accounting, financing and communication skills.

6. If your parents are serious about having you take over the farm someday, you need to see the farm’s financial records. Would you buy into a business with seeing the books? It’s the same thing with a farm or ranch.

7. Don’t have the family talk about the succession and estate planning over the holidays, even though the whole family may be home. You need to have a separate meeting. It should be held away from the farm in a hotel or community center meeting room, for example. If you have it around the kitchen table, there are too many distractions, power symbols (who sits at the head of the table?) and ghosts. If you have it around the kitchen table, remember that’s where you sat in the high chair and ate Cheerios, Ferrell said.

8. Your job as the farm’s new CEO is to preserve and grow the assets, to take care of your parents in their retirement, and provide a living for yourself, your family and your employees, Chambers said. So, what can you bring to the business? What will you do?

9. When you go back to the farm, get a contract in writing. It should cover what your responsibilities will be, how you will be held accountable, what you will be paid (salary, insurance and 401K retirement plan,), how you will be paid (will it include cell phones, vehicle, fuel, housing and food for the freezer?) and how you will become an owner.

10. Beware of the Lion King succession plan. In the Lion King movie, the father and son are sitting on top of the ridge overlooking the savanna and the father says, “Someday, this will all be yours” “That isn’t a plan,” Ferrell said. “That is a punt.”