1. Farm Succession Planning - a high-country road with a fair few pot holes to steer your way around.

Farm succession planning is often not an easy task. There are frequently completing and conflicting interests. Compromises are often made, and those can lead to unintended consequences. At the same time the decisions that will need to be taken are relatively simple. The problem is that they are also profoundly important for the family. This guidance note highlights those key and conflicting issues, and includes examples of how others haven't got it quite right, and paid a heavy price.

2. Registering Security over Livestock - easy and cheap to do, and well worth it when your hard-earned assets are at risk.

Whether you are a lessor, a seller, or a lender, livestock are big money, moveable, saleable, and therefore worth keeping your legal hooks into to protect your interests. The documentation and necessary clauses are light-weight, and the costs and work involved in registering a charge over livestock are small. However, the protection that proper registration of your security will give you could be massive should things go bad. This brief highlights the situations where you may need the protection of having security registered over livestock, and how you go about making sure you are at the front of the queue to grab the animals before someone else does.

3. On-Farm Employment - the basics are relatively easy to get the grip of, and to get right.

Becoming an employer can be a daunting step. However, the key aspects of the relationship between employer and employee are pretty basic, and with a small investment in time and energy, you will quickly be able to manage your team professionally, legally, and effectively, for the benefit of your farming operations. This note covers off some of the easy but important stuff to get right which will undoubtedly allow you to focus on the more important drivers of productivity and profitability.