UI Extension surveying Eastern Idaho farmers to improve succession planning workshops
Input from producers will help University of Idaho Extension design more effective, accessible workshops
November 19, 2025
PRESTON, Idaho — University of Idaho Extension is recruiting Eastern Idaho farmers to take an online survey that will guide the format, content, frequency and locations of future succession planning workshops.
UI Extension has hosted these workshops for several years to help farmers begin what is often a difficult discussion with family about how to best pass their assets to the next generation.
The survey, which will remain open through the end of the year, includes 15 questions seeking feedback to make succession planning as relevant as possible for participants. It also asks producers to share hurdles that have slowed or stopped their own planning efforts.
The average age of an Idaho farmer is 56.6 years old, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture — a reminder that many producers are nearing a point where they need to make key decisions about the future of their operations.
“The goal of the ranch succession workshops is not for them to walk out with a finalized plan but to know how to start the conversation and what they need to do before they start a conversation with an accountant or lawyer and get them started down the road,” said Shannon Williams, a UI Extension educator based in Lemhi County who is part of the succession planning team. “That communication piece is the foundation of everything.”
Having participated with family members in a UI Extension succession planning workshop in Franklin County in 2020, fourth-generation Swan Lake farmer Glen Merrill has the peace of mind of knowing his 2,550-acre farm and ranch should remain intact for generations to come. Merrill, 67, recommends the UI Extension succession planning workshops to any farmer who hasn’t begun to prepare for the future.
“You have to do this while you can, and it doesn’t happen overnight,” Merrill said. “If you do nothing, then you are in trouble.”
Merrill and his wife, Julia, have three sons and two daughters. They’ll pass the farm down to the family of their youngest daughter, Melanie Larson, whose husband, Aaron, has been a partner on the farm for the past 13 years.
A key lesson of succession planning is that an equitable solution that keeps the farm whole while meeting the needs of children doesn’t always distribute assets equally.
“It’s not always equal. Our other kids are making their livings and their retirements on the jobs they’re doing, and Aaron is working here and earning his retirement,” Julia said. “Aaron would never survive and keep the farm running if he had to buy them all out.”
The succession planning team also includes UI Extension educators Joseph Sagers, Jefferson County; David Callister, Butte County; Bracken Henderson, Franklin County; Jared Gibbons, Madison County; and Steve Hines, Jerome County. The educators were trained in facilitating succession planning workshops through Utah State University Extension, which used curriculum developed by South Dakota State University Extension.
UI Extension aims to offer at least one succession planning training in Eastern Idaho per year, changing locations throughout the region to reach more producers. By the end of the class, producers should have a good idea of what they intend to leave behind and meetings they should schedule with estate lawyers, financial planners and other professionals. Workshops typically last a total of six hours, spread over multiple sessions to allow families time to complete homework.
“You can go through and start the process of your own succession planning and it doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does have to start,” Sagers said.
Extension recently entered a partnership with the Idaho State Department of Agriculture, the Pocatello-based Sagebrush Steppe Regional Land Trust, the Driggs-based Teton Regional Land Trust and American Farmland Trust to help run and promote the training. Land trusts seek to protect open spaces from development in perpetuity, often purchasing the right to develop land from a property owner — known as a conservation easement — while allowing the family to retain ownership of the land and continue using it for agricultural production. Conservation easements can provide producers funds toward operations, retirement or inheritance for children who aren’t involved in farming, while also giving them certainty that their land won’t be developed.
Heath Mann, director of the Sagebrush Steppe Regional Land Trust, views partnering with Extension as another effective way to further his nonprofit organization’s goal of preserving farmland and other types of open space.
“We can be a critical tool to help farmers and ranchers of working lands achieve the goals they would like, whether that’s passing the land on to a family member, protecting the land in its current form or protecting that land if it is determined to have a high conservation value,” Mann said.
For more information about UI Extension, visit uidaho.edu/extension.
Media contacts
John O’Connell
Assistant director of communications
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
208-530-5959
joconnell@uidaho.edu
Shannon Williams
UI Extension Educator, Lemhi County
208-742-1696
shannonw@uidaho.edu