The Canadian Association of Farm Advisors (CAFA) Inc. today announced that RBC will be the foundation sponsor for CAFA’s “Farm Business Advisor Manual”, as CAFA unveils this year’s updated version.

As a multi-disciplinary resource for farm families and their professional advisors, the “Farm Business Advisor Manual” is the only updated farm business resource of its kind in the world. Written by some of Canada’s top farm family advisors, the manual’s comprehensive contents include chapters on the buying and selling of land, accounting/farm management, financing, bankruptcy, tax, farming basics, human resources, family law, off-farm investments, risk management, estate and succession planning.

The manual also lists more than 256 links to relevant government sites, with over 140 appendices, including: Department of Agriculture fact sheets; Canada Revenue Agency bulletins and interpretations; Excel spreadsheets; and practical worksheets in pdf format. The manual is available in a CD format and on the Internet.

Linked to the publication of the manual, RBC will be holding a series of Farm Succession Planning seminars across Canada.

“Recent StatsCan findings underline the urgent need for succession planning advice, with more than 120,000 Canadian farmers reaching retirement age by 2010,” says Brian Little, RBC’s national manager for agriculture and agribusiness. “It’s estimated that less than 5% of Canada’s agribusiness owners have a written succession plan. We’re trying to provide Canadian farm families with access to all the information they need to ensure a successful future as they transfer their farming assets.”