Many years ago, I spoke at the State Fair of Texas with Dr. Red Duke, a Korean War veteran and legendary figure in medicine. Widely considered the best trauma surgeon in the world, Dr. Duke was the first physician to respond to President JFK following his assassination and immediately after, led the lifesaving surgery of JFK’s front seat passenger, Texas Governor John Connally. Later in his career Dr. Duke pioneered the Life Flight helicopter program and hosted the “Texas Health Reports” TV Program. In addition to his other accolades, Dr. Duke was a true cowboy, a passionate conservationist, and an advocate for sustainable agriculture.
When speaking of the importance of preserving family legacies in agriculture, Dr. Duke quoted, “We do not inherit land from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” His words enamored me. As a sixth-generation kid on a family ranch, leaving for college soon and struggling to nail down a path of study, I felt Dr. Duke’s words as a call to stewardship.
According to the latest U.S. Census of Agriculture (2022), Texas leads the nation in numbers of farms and ranches. Sadly, between 2017 and 2022, roughly 1.8 million acres were converted from agricultural production to non-agricultural uses. That equates to 887 acres lost per day! One of the greatest drivers of lost ag acreage is assuming that the next generation can afford to keep it.
Even paid-off land has costs, like property taxes and maintenance. Further, when larger properties are divided equally amongst heirs without an established succession plan for running the family business, the costs climb – water wells, electricity lines, and roads are required for smaller tracts to become standalone operations. When family land becomes too expensive to keep, lucrative exit opportunities abound. And so goes another 887 acres sold to a subdivision developer.
You can see why estate planning is pivotal for preserving family farms and ranches. Good estate planning can literally decide whether a farm or ranch survives another generation. CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals and estate planning attorneys work together to use modernized estate planning tools like strategic trusts, family limited partnerships, buy-sell agreements, life insurance and more, to minimize tax implications, avoid forced sales, and keep family land intact.
After Dr. Duke’s speech, I went on to earn a degree in Agricultural Economics, obtain my Certified Financial Planner® certification, and start a career in financial planning. I later moved back to the family ranch where my kids are learning the value of hard work in the same dirt their 4X great-grandparents settled. Now, I work for a firm that provides multigenerational estate planning services to ranching and oil and gas families who’ve used strategic estate planning tools to preserve their family legacies for over a century.
Every morning, I look out over my family’s cow-calf operation and remember – this is a legacy I am responsible for preserving for my own children. Come back for my next article of this series, which will be published on February 23rd. I’ll dive into some of the most powerful estate planning tools that can be used to keep family farm and ranch legacies alive for generations to come.
Hannah Gohmert, CFP® is the Chief Compliance Officer of Keller Wealth Advisors.