Taking Stock

[imwithmo]

Is anyone familiar with the new Ag program "Taking Stock". It involves participating in a process to determine opportunities, strengths, weakness's etc. Once a need is determined, you can access cost shared funding up to $4000 to assist in working through the issues.

Examples of needs could be succession planning, financial planning, human resources, major business changes and even tax structure and re-org.

I am familiar with the program and feel its something many should get involved in. Parts of the program are similar to the previous one CFBAS (Canadian Farm Business Advisory Services)

I am interested in hearing anyone's comments

[Choice2U]

A good business manager should be thinking about this stuff all the time. Paying for it out of their own pocket if they need added help. It irks me to think that, once again, government has to pay business to be good managers. Add this to the price of the turkey dinner in a previous thread.

[DogPatch]

If you get involved with a consultant, don't tell your banker. A friend got involved with one under the CASS program about expanding his operation. When the consultant crunched the numbers on the current operation, and then on the projected enterprise there were some numbers that involved expanding their operation. The banker looked at their current operation, concluded that it couldn't be done without additional income and forced them to the point that they had to get out of farming. Easier than dealing with the bank on a restructure.