Resources
The Compound Yield Plan, explained stage by stage, along with other resources for farm and ranch families thinking through what protecting the operation actually looks like.
A plan that grows the way your operation does.
Most of what you build on a farm or ranch doesn't sit in a bank account — it's in the ground, the equipment, the herd, the operation itself. That doesn't change as you get older. What changes is what you need protected against it, and when.
The Compound Yield Plan is built around four stages, each named for an actual step in a plant's life cycle — because the reasoning isn't decorative, it's the same reasoning a farm already runs on. Plant when you're just getting started. Graft when you're building something bigger, often alongside someone else. Bear when decades of work finally need to turn into something your family can actually use. Propagate when it's time for the next generation to start their own version of the same cycle.
Here's what each stage actually means for you:
Under 40
You're carrying real debt right now — a land note, equipment payments, maybe a herd or a crop that's still being paid down — and most of what you own doesn't turn into cash on short notice. If something happened to you tomorrow, would your family have room to breathe, or would they be forced to sell in a hurry just to cover what's owed? That's the question this stage exists to answer.
40 to 60
These are your highest-earning years, and also the years everything you've built is still tied up entirely in the operation — none of it liquid, none of it separate from a bad market or a bad season. And if you're not farming alone — a sibling, a spouse, a partner — there's a second question underneath the first: if something happened to one of you, does the other end up in business with someone who's never touched the books? This stage is about building something outside the operation, and making sure ownership already has an answer before it's ever tested.
60 and up
Most of what you've built your whole life is sitting in the ground — worth more than you ever imagined, and none of it something you can hand a child a check for. If one of your kids is running the operation and the others aren't, how do you treat all three fair without selling ground the family's held for generations? That's the real question at this stage — not what happens to you, but what happens to them.
Next Generation
The plan doesn't end with you — it's supposed to start over. Your grandchildren are exactly who this was built to protect, and the heir taking over the operation is standing right where you stood decades ago, at the very beginning of their own version of this same plan. This stage is about the cycle actually continuing, instead of everyone starting from zero the way you once did.