What is a Grazing Lease? A grazing lease is an agreement between a landowner (the “lessor”) and a livestock owner (the “lessee”) where the landowner agrees to let the livestock owner graze livestock on his or her land in exchange for cash rent. Given the number of potential factors at play, a grazing lease agreement can quickly turn into a …
Presentation on Common Agriculture Contacts
[slideshare id=64362431&doc=overviewofcommonagriculturecontracts-7-25-16-160725160412] I will be going through the above presentation for a live webcast this Thursday at 3:30pm ET via Lawline. The recording will be available soon after my presentation via Lawline. You can register for the live webcast here. In this presentation, I will be discussing a few of the major contractual issues that affect production agriculture including agriculture production …
A Few Important Farm Lease Terms
For those of you who are thinking about your farm lease, here are a few terms to consider: Parties: Ensure that all intended parties to the lease are named and adequately identified by the inclusion of their addresses or other unique identifying information. Purpose: It is recommended that farm leases note the purpose of the lease (e.g., corn production). Property …
So What About a Heifer Lease?
Perhaps you have heard about a bull lease – so what about a heifer lease? Here are a few suggested terms for a heifer lease: 1. Name and address of owner of the heifer (What is the name on the registration paper, if applicable?) 2. Name and address of the lessee (individual or farm name) 3. Name, date of birth, registration number, …
Overview of Farm Leases
In case you missed my webinar on farm leases, you can review my outline on my JD Supra page here. It provides some helpful information that I was not able to talk about during the CLE last week with the National Agricultural Law Center (“NALC”). You may request a recording by reaching out to NALC directly. Hope it is a …
Ask Cari: Is Rental Income from a Farm Lease Self-Employment Taxable for Social Security Purposes?
I was recently posed this question from a farmer close to retirement concerned about social security. He has been farming his whole life and would like to shift into a landlord role. In way of background, you must have a certain number of credits under the social security system before receiving social security based eligible quarters. A farmer may have …
More Than a Handshake: Some Thoughts on Farm Leases
I make no secret on this blog that I believe farmers and ranchers should make sure to get contracts in writing, including farm or ranch leases. I want to stress that this is just as important for a family farm where the Landlord and Tenant may be family members. Even if the Landlord and Tenant are different entities (with the …
Types of Farm Leases: Cash-Rent vs. Crop-Share
Happy Friday! Last week, I stumbled across Rusty Rumley’s powerpoint presentation on “Agricultural Contracts and the Leasing of Land.” Rusty does a great job giving an overview of the building blocks. He’s a great teacher — he was one of my instructors in this agriculture law course last year— and I suggest looking at his presentation along with other useful …
ABA Agriculture Law Subcommittees
As I noted in this previous post, I am the new Chair of the American Bar Association (“ABA”), General Practice, Solo and Small Firm’s Division, Agriculture Law Committee. You can join the Committee and the Discussion List here. I have restructured the subcommittees as follows: 1. Ag ADR: mediation, arbitration 2. Ag Estate/Succession Planning, Family Law, and Taxation: estate planning,succession …
Celebrating One Year of Blogging About Food and Agriculture Law
I want to give a big thank you to all of my readers out there. I have had a great time blogging over the last year about food and agriculture law issues on this blog. I am excited to implement video blogs and guest blogs in the next year. In case you missed them, here were some of my favorite …