RESEARCHERS are urging farm businesses and landholders to contribute to the Farm Transfer Survey before the survey closes on June 30.
Senior lecturer at the University of New England’s Business School, and co-designer of the survey, Dr Lucie Newsome said the survey is gathering information about how farming families succeed at business succession – and how they fail – with the aim of increasing the success rate of future intergenerational transfers.
“Failure to effectively manage succession can have disastrous consequences – for the farm business, for farm families, and for rural communities that rely on intergenerational farming families to support physical and social infrastructure,” Dr Newsome said.
“We are still failing too often at succession, which is why we launched the survey. We’re gathering first-hand information on why and how the process succeeds or fails, so that we can distil that experience into an up-to-date guide for families facing succession.”
Data assembled from the survey will also be available to consultants and farm groups, to support their efforts to improve succession outcomes.
The last national farm succession survey was 20 years ago.
Much has changed in the past two decades, Dr Newsome says, not least that farm values have soared and pushed up the financial stakes of succession.
The response to the 2025 Farm Transfer Survey has been strong, Dr Newsome says, but she urges anyone who owns agricultural land to complete the survey.
That includes families who haven’t embarked on a succession plan, but who will need to do so in the future.
“Everyone who contributes to this survey may be helping a family negotiate their own succession process in the future,” she said.
“If your experience was terrible, let us know why. If your experience was positive, also let us know why. Even if you feel you aren’t saying anything that’s new, you are helping us understand how certain patterns can repeat, and how they might be addressed.”
To participate go to Farm Transfer Survey.
