context: At oral argument debtor urged us to consider these conversations illustrative of debtor's "conducting" the farming of its acreage. The courts below rejected this suggestion, and so do we. In order for debtor to be characterized as "conducting" the farming of its acreage within the meaning of SS 101(17)(B), some member of the Wargo family must at minimum play an active role in the farming operation taking place on its land.
citation_a.signal: see
citation_a.identifier: 74 B.R. 280, 285
citation_a.parenthetical: though corporate debt- or leased all of its farmland in crop year 1987, debtor eligible for Chapter 12 relief because it, through its principals, had planted and harvested crops in 1986, the year in which it filed its petition
citation_a.sentence: See In re Burke, 81 B.R. 971, 976 (Bankr.S.D.Iowa 1987) (corporate debtor which leases farmland to tenant under crop share arrangement considered “engaged in farming” only if family members of debtor “take an active role in the operation”); In re Mikkelsen Farms, Inc., 74 B.R. 280, 285 (Bankr.D.Or.1987) (though corporate debt- or leased all of its farmland in crop year 1987, debtor eligible for Chapter 12 relief because it, through its principals, had planted and harvested crops in 1986, the year in which it filed its petition).
citation_b.signal: cf.
citation_b.identifier: 57 B.R. 648, 656
citation_b.parenthetical: corporation receives income from a farming operation if income is "derived from its own farming or production efforts as opposed to the farming or production efforts of others"
citation_b.sentence: Cf. In re Dakota Lay’d Eggs, 57 B.R. 648, 656 (Bankr.D.N.D.1986) (corporation receives income from a farming operation if income is “derived from its own farming or production efforts as opposed to the farming or production efforts of others”). As the District Court observed, the conversations just described do not distinguish the role played by the Wargo family in the production of crops on debtor’s acreage from that of an absentee landlord doing business in the corporate form who simply owns land and leases it to a tenant farmer from year to year. In re Tim Wargo & Sons, Inc., 86 B.R. at 151. The “conduct” element of § 101(17)(B) serves to exclude from Chapter 12 eligibility those corporations which bear so attenuated a connection with the farming operation itself.