“Your Farm, Your Future” Project Wins International Economic Development Award
(GUELPH) Wellington County’s groundbreaking succession initiative, Your Farm, Your Future, has recognized with multiple national and international awards, including Gold for Innovation by the International Excellence in Economic Development Council (IEDC), the world’s largest association of economic developers.
LOFT32 led the project’s strategic design and content creation. For this work, the firm earned silver at the Canadian Farm Writers Association and recently was named a finalist to compete at the Canadian Argi-Food Marketing Alliance Best of CAMA Awards, taking place in November.
Developed to meet one of agriculture’s most urgent challenges — the retirement of an estimated 40% of farmers between 2023 and 2033 — the project delivered a multipronged, farmercentred approach to succession planning. The initiative included a print and digital guidebook, online learning modules, webbased planning tools, and a threepart inperson workshop series.
“We started with respect and curiosity,” says Maggie Van Camp, LOFT32 cofounder and director of strategic change. “Farmers are smart and want to plan for the best outcomes. Our job was to help them prepare, improve communication, and take action.”
To build the project’s core framework, Van Camp convened a national team of succession and financial experts — Elaine Froese (Manitoba), Rob Knight (Ontario), Trevor Maclean (Alberta), Len Davies (Ontario), and Patti Durand (Saskatchewan). Together, they identified the 10–15 most critical questions
asked during succession planning of three key audiences: outgoing owners with a family successor, outgoing owners without a successor, and incoming nonfamily successors. These questions became the backbone of the guidebook, workshops, and online tools.
The response has been overwhelming. The three-workshop series sold out last winter, and demand for reprints and web resources continues to grow across Canada.
“The need for farm succession planning is immense,” says Van Camp. “We need to work together, learn from each other, and build solutions from the ground up — just as Wellington County did with this project.”
The project’s full resource hub, including the guidebook, is available at: Transition Planning | Wellington County
For More Information
Maggie Van Camp
maggie@loft32.ca
About IEDC
Based in Washington, D.C., the International Economic Development Council is the world’s largest association for economic developers, representing more than 4,500 members across government, nonprofits, publicprivate partnerships, utilities, universities, and entrepreneurial organizations.
About LOFT32 / Farmers Bridge
LOFT32, based in Guelph, Ontario, provides speaking, training, project management, and subjectmatter expertise to elevate agricultural people, businesses and conversations. Farmers Bridge, a division of LOFT32, focuses on succession solutions — connecting, training, and inspiring farmers to build a bridge to their future.
Farmers’ Bridge – Connects, trains and inspires to help you build a bridge to your farms’ future.
About CAMA
The Canadian Agri-food Marketers Alliance (CAMA) is a network of agri-food marketing professionals including marketers, communicators, sales, and branders in agri-food companies representing manufacturers, processors, retailers, marketing agencies, media, academia, and other agri-food-related companies, organizations and associations – dedicated to improving the marketing and communications sector of Canada’s food system. Canadian Agri-food Marketers Alliance | CAMA
About CFWF
The Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation (CFWF) serves the common interests of agricultural journalists, including reporters, editors and broadcasters as well as those in business and government whose primary responsibility is agricultural communications. Home
