Outdated Inheritance Laws Threaten Thousands of Family Farms — Change Is Urgent
Monday, February 2, 2026
Reference: Sponsored Article
Advocating for modern farm succession laws to protect families, communities, and Canada’s agricultural future.
For Derryn Shrosbree, the conversation about farm succession always comes back to family… and the potential for disaster.
His father owned a farm, and when he died without a plan, Derryn says his family imploded.
“It wasn’t one bad decision,” Derryn says emphatically. “It was no decisions. And that’s often worse.”
Derryn spent years working on Wall Street in the cutthroat and high-risk world of derivatives trading. Fast forward to 2026 and Derryn owns his own farm in Mount Forest, Ontario while also supporting farmers with their succession planning. It’s his passion, and his mission.
“We take procrastination out back and shoot it,” is the headline on his website. He smiles when anyone mentions that it’s not the usual tagline.
“Farmers want to be working the farm. They don’t love spending time on paperwork or dealing with lawyers, and accountants and insurance companies and banks. That’s why 88 per cent of Canadian farmers don’t have a succession plan. And who can blame them for not wanting to start that process,” he adds.
But that’s just one aspect of Derryn’s driving forces. He’s also launched a formal advocacy campaign to change Canada’s Income Tax Act to allow nieces and nephews to inherit family farms with the same tax-deferred treatment as sons and daughters. Families today are smaller, and kids often pursue careers off the farm. Increasingly, nieces and nephews are not only working the farm for years, but want to take over the operation to preserve generations of family legacy.
“I’m actively meeting with Members of Parliament and key stakeholders in the farming sector to convince the federal government to change the regulations in Section 73(3). If you think about it, it makes total sense with the volatile global environment and foreign interest in our resources.
The value of farmland is as undeniable as the value of oil, gold, and fresh water. We should protect what we have and keep them in the hands of our family farmers,” Shrosbree insists.
He’s especially concerned about the survival of small rural communities, pointing out that many diverse, smaller farms not only strengthen our food supply, they house families who keep smaller towns alive and vibrant.
For Derryn, this work is about more than tax policy, it’s about protecting families, communities, and a way of life that cannot be rebuilt once it’s lost. If Canada wants family farms to survive more generations, he believes the rules must catch up to the realities of 2026 and beyond.
“Once a family farm is forced to sell, it almost never comes back,” Shrosbree says. “If we’re serious about food security, rural communities, and keeping Canadian land in Canadian hands, then modernizing inheritance laws is not optional, it’s urgent.”
