Want to improve your landlord relationships? Consider a farmland lease annual report

 “Quality communication”, is one of the building blocks in most relationships. It is one of the most necessary attributes when forming or managing a diverse team of business partners, cooperators or even family members.

Today we have email, text, social media applications, paper and other tools that allow us to share information faster and more accurately than at any time on history.  Yet, in the field of agriculture many landlords still feel they are kept in the dark. Some only hear from their tenants when it’s time to pay rent, renegotiate the contract or if the landowner has to keep up with a certain caveat in the lease. Or, they ask for basic information and the tenant acts like its none of their business to be privy to such details.

Many landlords do not have a deep understanding of agriculture or common industry production methods and like to know what’s going on their property, want to make sure that they are doing what is best for their property, or the environment, or want to feel like they are part of the production team. They just crave some information and gain knowledge or easy some anxiety.

One way to enhance and develop communication and build the mutual trust of both parties is to consider preparing an annual farmland lease report. While not a legal document or contract, this simple tool is a guide for sharing crop information for farmland rental agreements.

An annual lease report is a written, consistent way to share information. The reported information should help the owner and producer both to grow in the understanding their relationship and priorities of each party.

If an annual report has not been used in the past, explain the purpose and the benefits with your landlords.  To protect the interests of both parties you both should agree upon the confidential nature of the information.

 Items that you may want to include in the annual report may include:

·         Acreage Planted: The crops planted in each field, as well as the planting rates. 

·         Number of animal units per acre over the year and days on pasture.

·        Fertilizer Applied: The fertilizer types and rates for each field. 

·         Crop Chemicals Used: The date of application and application rate for each chemical. 

·         Soil Tests: The date and type (grid, zone, etc.) for every soil test completed on each field.

·         Yield Results: Insurance quotes, yield maps or scale tickets to show per-acre yields for each field. You might also want to request historical yields.

·         Soil and Land Improvements: This could include tiling, drainage, fences, etc.

Iowa state University has a template that may help you design a report that will work for your operation. Download a farmland lease annual report form from Iowa State University.

 If you have questions about developing a farmland lease report please contact me at cchilds@vt.edu