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A Legacy Without Takers: Economic Pressures, Urban Sprawl Leave Agriculture With Too Few Future Farmers

Posted on: Sunday, 14 May 2006, 21:01 CDT

By Monique Curet, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

May 14--Jeff Wuebker says he became a farmer by default, but his wife, Dena, knows it's because "it's in the blood."

His dad and granddad before him were farmers. When Jeff's father died of a heart attack eight years ago, "That made me an instant hog farmer," the 35-year-old says.

To make a living in an industry with low profit margins, the Wuebkers are growing crops, raising hogs, baling hay, selling straw and running a small seed dealership on their farm in Versailles, northwest of Dayton in Darke County. This year, Jeff and his brother, who owns the farm with him, will spend more than $1 million to expand their hog operation.

"What keeps us here is love for doing it," Jeff Wuebker said.

Increasingly, fewer young people such as the Wuebkers are choosing farming as a career.

The reasons are many: Land and equipment costs are high, providing steep hurdles to getting started, while competition from much larger farms is rising.

In Ohio, the number of farms operated by 25- to 44-year-olds declined 24 percent from 1992 to 2002, while the number increased 6.8 percent for those 45 and older, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics. That's among farms with annual sales of $10,000 or more, run by farmers who spend at least half of their work time farming.

Nationwide, the percentage of farmers under 35 is the lowest it's ever been, said Mike Duffy, director of the Beginning Farmer Center at Iowa State University.

That means production is being concentrated in fewer hands, which deters innovation and makes addressing environmental issues more difficult, Duffy said.

"We'd better be concerned about it, or we're just going to lose a whole generation," Duffy said.

Obstacles for young farmers

The Wuebker brothers inherited their farm when their parents died. Jeff Wuebker thinks it would be "just impossible" for most young people to get started in farming without help from their families or someone else.

Cost is the biggest barrier to entry into the industry, experts say.

Land can be particularly expensive near metropolitan areas, where competition for property is high. In Ohio, land values are rising, and there is more "urban pressure," because the state has numerous metropolitan areas that are close to rural areas, said David Drake, farm loan chief for the Ohio Farm Service Agency.

"Young farmers are saying, 'We can't make this pay in Ohio,' " so they're farming elsewhere or seeking other employment, Drake said.

Almost every rural area in the state is a relatively short drive from a metropolitan area, where more jobs with steady pay are available, said Melanie Wilt, spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture. That's true even in Ohio's weak economy.

Wilt, 29, grew up on a farm. Her 30-year-old husband, Chad, now farms with her father while running his own farm. The couple bought their land about five years ago. When faced with the large investments necessary to begin a farm, she said, "The numbers can be overwhelming," especially when the profits are small.

It takes good business sense, a love of the work and help with capital for young people to become farmers, she said.

Industry issues

Even if older farmers have arranged to transfer their farms, which can help their children enter the industry, there are other challenges.

Dick Dawson, 82, owns a Delaware County farm that his 46-year-old son, Doug, manages. They are concerned about housing expanding in the area, Dick Dawson said. A new development with 1,000 houses and a golf course is being built about 2 miles from his farm, and a fourlane highway is in the works.

"We don't know what the future will bring. We never thought it would be like this 20 years ago," he said.

A good deal of farmland is being lost, Dawson said.

At the same time, farms are getting bigger, in terms of the acreage, said Drake, with the Ohio Farm Service Agency.

As farms become larger, disputes often emerge with the communities that are expanding in their direction. Dawson is acutely aware of the intersection of farms and residential properties.

"They're coming at us," he said of housing developments.

Because Dawson is only a few miles from the city of Delaware, he said, he has to be particular about environmental issues and how he treats his neighbors. Dawson's farm produces hogs and he said he tries to be careful with manure, so he won't make his neighbors unhappy.

But that kind of awareness needs to happen on both sides. Non-farmers living in rural areas should remember that a farm that can support a family is not the farm they remember from their parents' or grandparents' day, said Constance Cullman Jackson, vice president of agricultural ecology for the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation.

Counter trends

Farms traditionally have been passed from generation to generation, but now other people are taking an interest in agriculture, said Duffy, the Iowa State farm center official. He's been encountering more adults who already pursued one career and then decided to take up farming.

Duffy said he's also seeing more young people, with no farm background but with an idealistic notion of farming, entering sustainable-agriculture programs.

He doesn't think, though, that the number of people entering farming in those ways is offsetting those leaving.

There appears to be a steady entry of new small farmers, said Carl Zulauf, an agriculture economist at Ohio State University.

The number of small farms hasn't declined in the past 25 to 30 years, he said. And consolidation of farms mostly has been among the mid-size and larger operations.

Specialization also is increasing, as farmers try to meet market demand for things such as organic foods, and as they seek out products with higher profit margins than the traditional commodities.

As more farmers seek to serve niche markets, organizations including Farm Bureau and the Ohio Department of Agriculture have implemented programs to promote the purchase of local products.

Other changes

At the same time that fewer young people are entering farming, farmers are growing older.

Farmers traditionally have been older than the population as a whole, experts say. But the average age of farmers nationally increased to 55.3 in 2002, from 53.3 in 1992, according to USDA figures. In Ohio, the change was a bit smaller, with an average age of 53.8 in 2002, up from 52 in 1992.

Part of the reason is that, from a health standpoint, farmers now can work significantly longer than before. And more mechanization allows them to stay on the farm longer.

One implication of the parallel trends of aging farmers and fewer young farmers is that "as we go forward, we're going to be really wrestling with the transfer of farm assets," Jackson said.

As baby boomers leave the industry, the transition is important, she said. Ultimately, the trends could lead to more consolidation.

The Farm Bureau supports federal legislation that would eliminate capital-gains taxes when farmland is sold to a beginning farmer or rancher, Jackson said.

Bob Hatfield is a 78-year-old Pickaway County farmer who doesn't have anyone to whom he can turn over his farm.

The farm has been in his family for several generations. But he doesn't have any children, and his extended family isn't interested in taking over.

Hatfield would like to see his operation, which is between 500 and 600 acres, remain as farmland after his lifetime. But he said he hasn't made any plans for its transfer.

"I just can't make up my mind what I want to see happen to it," he said.

mcuret@dispatch.com

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Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

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