New estimates from USDA say that this year, 82 percent of farm income will come from off-farm jobs. That’s up from just 53 percent in 1960, demonstrating how falling farm incomes have turned “what was once a way of life into a part-time job,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
Farms have been shuttering at a rapid clip, but experts estimate that without off-farm work, they would be closing down even faster. One reason for the declining viability of farming as a full-time job is that the cost of inputs has far outpaced the price of commodities. The average cost of an acre of corn seed has quadrupled in the last 20 years, while the price farmers receive for corn has only risen about 30 percent in that time. About half of farm families rely on health insurance provided by an off-farm employer.
Farmers attribute some of the rising cost of inputs and land to ongoing consolidation in the farm sector. “In 15 to 20 years you’ll see big, corporate farms and you won’t see very many, if any at all, little farmers,” one Missouri farmer told the WSJ.