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Farmers Are Aging. Their Kids Don't Want to Be in the Family Business

20 points by JumpCrisscross

by JoeAltmaier

3 subcomments

In Iowa, most farmland is owned by folks 55+. A third in their eighties. Half women (widows by and large). The land, if it's farmed at all, is by a younger tenant farmer who pays cash rent.
A huge intergenerational transfer is imminent. What the grandkids will do with eighty acres in Iowa is anybody's guess.

by 46493168

0 subcomment

The article doesn’t say enough about why this matters. I have no opinion either way, I just presume from the headline that the author thinks it does, so it would have been more interesting if the author devoted more than a few sentences to that aspect.

by tim333

0 subcomment

I'm not sure modern farming is a good business for individuals economically. Earnings are very volatile - too good a year and the market is flooded and prices fall, too bad and you don't have enough product. Shareholder owned corporations can deal with the ups and downs more easily.

by washadjeffmad

0 subcomment

There's more to it, but on the heels of the egg crisis and poultry instability following years of consolidation of small and independent producers into large, corporate farms following the 2008 and 2014 Farm Bills, the perspectives of national leadership seem to be simplified to financials over a clear understanding of what contributes to the health and security of domestic food production.
I'd say I was worried, but there's not much to do about it. I've just watched ag and dairy dry up over the last quarter century as farmers in my state chase anything that will give their families security, even if it means being paid not to produce, not letting their children learn the business, or selling off land.

by pjfin123

1 subcomments

Realistically food prices need to go up to make this an attractive business for people to get into