SDSU Extension Continues Sustaining the Legacy Conferences for Farmers and Ranchers

Sep 13, 2023

Whether you’ve been farming or ranching for 10 years or 60, every operation should have a long-term plan.

From successfully transferring operations to the next generation to providing for children who didn’t stay on the farm or ranch, SDSU Extension’s Sustaining the Legacy program can help.

The next round of Sustaining the Legacy, a series of farm and ranch estate planning conferences, is Nov. 2, 9 and 16, 2023, at the SDSU Extension Pierre Regional Center. Each day starts at 10 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m. CDT. Lunch is provided.

“No matter the size of your estate, there are wrong, right and better ways to create a family legacy,” said SDSU Extension Livestock Business Management Field Specialist Heather Gessner. “Learning about the different methods can help farmers and ranchers create a legacy they are proud of.”

Gessner said that without help, estate planning can be confusing, overwhelming and time-consuming. It can also be a challenge to find the right attorneys, insurance agents and accountants who specialize in agriculture. Sustaining the Legacy gives participants access to those professionals all at once.

Sustaining the Legacy has been the SDSU Extension farm and ranch estate planning and farm transition program since 2006. The multi-day format gives families more time to work together to create estate plans during the event. Gessner recommends families attend together so everyone hears the same message.

This year’s topics include:
•   Trusts
•   Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) and Limited Liability Limited Partnerships (LLLPs)
•   Long-term care insurance
•   Wills and probate
•   Funding retirement
•   Current and potential tax situations

Tickets are $70 per person before Oct. 16, after which tickets are $80 per person. People can register up to the day of the event if space is available. Space is limited and early registration is highly encouraged.

Future Sustaining the Legacy events:
•   Dec. 5, 12 and 19. SDSU Extension Winner Regional Center. Early registration ends Nov. 23.
•   Jan. 9, 16 and 23. SDSU Extension Mitchell Regional Center. Early registration ends Dec. 22.
•   Feb. 6, 13 and 20. SDSU Extension Aberdeen Regional Center. Early registration ends Jan. 24.
•   March 5, 12 and 19. SDSU Extension Watertown Regional Center. Early registration ends Feb. 21

Source : sdstate.edu

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”