Where Is The Next Generation of Farmers?

Iowa winters typically bring about two things:

1.  Packing the gym of the local high school for basketball games and wrestling meets.

2.  Reflecting on the farm economy - the fall harvest, and what it means for next year.

By all accounts, this should be a good year at the basketball games and coffee shops.   According to Bruce Babcock, director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State:

"This year will be the perfect situation for Iowa farmers," Babcock said. "They have bin-busting crops and bin-busting government farm payments."

However, there was another news release last week of the Iowa State Extension's "Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll" which carries the tagline:

More than half of Iowa farmers surveyed would not advise their children to enter the family business

According to the article:

Fifteen-year-old Chris Pelzer of Tipton is a farmer's son who thinks he has little choice but to envision his future off the farm.

"The money's a problem," he said, describing the economic realities that make this 4-H member lean toward engineering or environmental science.

He's not alone. The new Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll from Iowa State University Extension shows that 57 percent of farmers surveyed would recommend their children choose a career other than farming.

"Families are not encouraging their sons and daughters to go into farming. It really revolves around capital, risk and lack of profits," said Paul Lasley, an Iowa State sociology professor and co-author of the report.

The survey's respondents say the top reason for young people not entering farming is high start-up costs, followed by the high risks, low profits and lack of available land.

The bottom line:  the long-term economic picture remains bleak.  Why?  According to the survey:

High start-up costs:  The farm policies that were laid out in the 1970s were often summed up in one phrase:  "Get big, or get out".  It takes an awful lot of capital to "start big" - and that's not something that an inspiring producer can do.

High Risks:  In the current environment of packer ownership of livestock and government-bolstered commodity prices, a farmer is at enormous risk of seeing the bottom drop out of a market when either the government changes farm policy, or corporate owners of a vertically-integrated supply chain decide to push livestock prices down in order to improve margins.  (Or corporate owners could potentially outsource livestock production altogether or take advantage of government loopholes to boost profit margins at the expense of the average producer.)

Low Profits:  Current government subsidy policy is set up to encourage overproduction - something that is inherently bad for the producer, but good for the processor.  "Freedom To Farm" has been transformed into the "Freedom to Go Broke".

Lack of Available Land:  As farms are forced to get bigger, they're forced to put more land into production.  Bigger farmers have access to capital that drives land prices out of the reach of smaller producers.

With the reasons given in the survey, it's easy to see that the competitive field is biased toward large "corporate" farms and multi-national agribusinesses - squeezing the smaller farmers out of existance.  Sound familiar?  It should - this is the "Wal-Martization" of agriculture, happening right before our eyes.

With all of this happening, you would think that organizations that have been set up to support and represent farmers would be fighting tooth-and-nail to protect the very people they represent, right?

Well....  maybe not:

While start-up costs and a lack of available land certainly played a role in the poll’s outcome, Putze said the ever-increasing regulatory environment and activist presence in the state certainly haven’t helped.

“Calling farmers terrorists and child abusers - as some activist groups have done - and defining a factory farmer as anyone who needs a permit to operate doesn’t go far in welcoming the next generation onto the farm,” Putze said.

Iowa's producers are going to have to realize that their economic and social fabric is being destroyed by the growing demands of corporate profiteers - not by the activists that are speaking up for the quality - and continuation - of the rural lifestyle.
The groups that purport to "support" Iowa's farmers do them no such favor by embracing the pro-corporate agenda that has been decimating the economic and social fabric of rural Iowa.

If you're interested in really supporting Iowa's farmers, the Iowa Farmers Union would be happy to hear from you - and so would we.

What do you think is causing farmers to tell their children to leave the farm?