At the South Dakota Governor’s Ag Summit held in Deadwood, South Dakota this summer, Alan Hojer spoke about Keep Farmers Farming, a non-profit South Dakota Ag Foundation program designed to benefit agriculturalists across the state.
Eleven years ago, Hojer was a member of a First Dakota National Bank advisory group monitoring issues around the country. A common theme drew their attention: farms throughout South Dakota were struggling due to a lack of planning when it came to generational transitioning. The group grew frustrated with the outcome of these farms, seeing how many were split up after the passing of one generation. Keep Farmers Farming was created to provide families with the necessary services and planning tools to ease the process of transitioning their farms and ranches.
Hojer said it was very much a grassroots movement, and he expressed his gratitude for the collaboration of all involved. “I give a lot of credit to First Dakota for their leadership because it took a lot of time to get to where we could help people, but when we got there, we could really start making a difference.”
After transferring from First Dakota National Bank to the South Dakota Ag Foundation in 2025, Hojer remains as the sole consultant on the team. Keep Farmers Farming provides connections with accountants, attorneys, and financial advisors. Hojer stated that the program itself doesn’t include these services but rather directs agriculturalists to the resources they need on a case-by-case basis. “We need all those other people, but we need them for moments of the process,” he said. “The people side is what takes time.”
The program encompasses the transition of operations today as well as estate planning, helping people prepare for the future before it becomes the present. They put operations on the offense and give them the tools to succeed going forward. “It’s a journey, it’s a process over a period of time. It’s not a moment,” he said.
Hojer said the program is supported by planning institutions (including the Ag Foundation) and the industry. He believes this bodes well for their future. “I’m excited about the level of support we’re getting from agriculture on the whole.”
People are supporting the program and increasingly utilizing its resources. Hojer is currently working with nearly 100 farm families across 40 operations, and they have aided over 400 operations in their generational transitioning process over the program’s history. He estimated that he travels nearly 70,000 miles each year visiting these farms and families, since the program’s work takes place almost entirely on the farm.
“We prepare. We spend time. We’re the boots on the ground, spending the time with the farmers and ranchers throughout the entire process,” he said. Hojer stressed the importance of getting to know people. Learning about each client’s unique situation and where they need to spend time within that operation to plan for the future is what sets this program apart. “We have to find the vision that we have collective agreement on so we can employ the right strategy.”
Every operation is different, so this type of planning is just as important as feeding cattle or planting seed. Hojer said that most people have never done this kind of planning, so they don’t realize they need it or don’t know where to start. “The right time for transition planning is in the 30s and 40s, and the only way they can do that is if they have the information,” said Hojer. Making this information more available and transparent is the key focus of the program.
“The wealth of our country is in rural America, and farmers and ranchers don’t know what to do with this,” said Hojer. “If we can get them to see it as an opportunity, especially for the next generation, then we have a vision we can get excited about.”
Hojer is very optimistic about the program’s future. He states that the level of transition happening in agriculture has never been experienced before, and there is a great need for services like those provided by Keep Farmers Farming. “We really feel like we’re at the beginning. I’m just seeing the demand is absolutely accelerating,” he said. He believes that Keep Farmers Farming is creating a model that will be viewed nationally and can be replicated by other states to fit their needs. While expanding beyond South Dakota is not a current objective of the program, Hojer believes that national expansion could be a possibility in the future since the generational transition of farms and ranches is a national challenge.
Hojer said that the program is in the process of scaling and adding people.
“Our plan is to make sure we’ll continue to grow the program in terms of staff, so it’s sustainable beyond me and my years.” He hopes to improve the efficiency of the program in order to reach more people, and shared that some exciting new additions, such as public workshops, might be available in the future. Transferring Keep Farmers Farming to the South Dakota Ag Foundation has allowed for public funding to the program that will hopefully enable them to bring in new consultants to meet the growing demand.
Making conversations like these more public will benefit producers and also consumers whose well-being is derived from the success of farms and ranches across the country. “It’s refreshing to see conversation at the national level about the topic,” Hojer said. He is passionate about the cause and believes the future looks bright for the program and for American agriculturalists.