Farming is not a job for the timid.
Which, apparently, means it’s a job for gray old men.
And that is a growing problem in America, though it seldom gets much attention because so few people these days have ties to the land.
First, some disclosures. I grew up a farm kid. My family has been on the Illinois land since the mid-1800s. In the years since the passing of my parents I have managed business affairs on behalf of my sister, Kathi, and myself. My father’s brother, Lee — 20 years dad’s junior — farms the ground. Despite the “uncle” relationship, the three of us are contemporaries, all in our 70s.
That places us solidly in the normal range. The farm, at just under 500 acres, matches the U.S. average size of 463 acres. Likewise, two-thirds of American farms are associated with senior citizens, most with succession problems for the future as family farms.
Consider some statistics: The most recent numbers show there are around 3.4 million agricultural producers in the country. Most are over 55, including a half million aged 75 and up.
There are 1.9 million farms encompassing 880 million acres nationally, which is more than twice the size of Alaska.
Smaller family farms are disappearing. To survive economically farms are getting larger and increasingly concentrated with big operators. Sixty percent of U.S. farms exceed 2000 acres. (Fact: America’s largest farmland owner, at 242,000 acres, is Bill Gates of Microsoft fame.)
The number of farms has dropped 14% since 1997. Cattle farms are down the most, with a 17% decline. But we like chicken. Poultry and egg farms are up 71%. Go figure.
Here’s a good reason there are fewer farms. About 815,000 farms made a profit in 2022, while 1.1 million racked up losses.
When the United States was founded the fledgling nation was mostly agrarian. It’s worth noting that Thomas Jefferson, the author of the 1776 Declaration of Independence — next year will mark 250 years since its signing in Philadelphia — believed the country’s future depended on the rugged individualism of farmers.
“Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens,” Jefferson stated. “They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.”
Here’s another, one that goes more directly to the benefit of common folks owning their own piece of America without being beholden to wealth concentrated among the few.
“Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state.”
In my own view, time has proven Jefferson both right and wrong. I agree the folks who work the ground belong to a singularly hardy and independent breed. They are tough and resilient because, if they weren’t, they would fail.
But times change, and America didn’t become the most powerful and wealthy nation on the planet by keeping everybody on the farm. The Industrial Revolution, the urbanization of the people, brought about expansion even Jefferson couldn’t foresee.
In his day nearly everybody farmed. As late as 1900, 40% of the population engaged in agriculture and 60% lived in rural areas. Today, just 3% of the population operates the farms.
The efficiency of the American farmer is astounding, and it allows 97% of the people to pursue their dreams without worrying about food insecurity. In a very real sense, U.S. farmers feed the world, shipping hundreds of millions of bushels overseas annually.
Look at that in perspective, though. Smaller farms are going out of business. The farmers themselves are graying at an alarming rate, with no succession plan in place. More than half the farms are not profitable.
International competitors — Brazil in particular — are catching up and eating away at American exports, further pressuring profits. Tariff uncertainties have hammered commodity prices. Costs for seed, fertilizer, herbicides and other inputs are always rising. A brand new combine can cost a half million dollars or more.
Government often makes the problems worse for family farmers hoping to pass the ground along to the next generation. Illinois, where our farm sits, has a tough estate tax, allowing only about a third of the none-too-generous exemption set by the federal government. A legislative fix — called the Family Farm Preservation Act — was just dropped from the Illinois budget plan, continuing the trend of taxing heirs off the land.
Wisconsin, by the way, does it right, by not levying a farm estate tax.
For the non-farmers out there — all 97% of you — this is probably more than anybody cares to know. But here’s my point. If America still values the legacy of its independent farm past, it will take more than nostalgia to preserve it.
(Bill Barth is the former Editor of the Beloit Daily News, and a member of the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame. Write to him at [email protected].)
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