The grim joke in agriculture is that, considering the cost of land and equipment, the only way to become a farmer is to be born into a farm family or marry into one. A recent USDA survey underlined the hurdle of acquiring land, finding that landlords prefer to keep ownership in the family and expect to sell a comparatively modest 21 million acres to outsiders over the next five years. About 2 percent of farmland changes hands each year. “This means that only a small percentage of farmland will be available for new entrants into the farming sector,” said USDA in its report, Tenure, Ownership and Transition of Agricultural Land (TOTAL).
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is considering an in-depth study of the land-access question. “We’re working on that concept,” Vilsack told the James Beard Foundation conference. “Probably the first of next year we’ll be in a position to talk a little bit about that issue.”
The idea for a special commission came from an advisory committee focused on beginning farmers and ranchers. The committee met in early August in Kansas City to discuss access to land, farm-business transition and land tenure. Farming in the United States is a highly capitalized undertaking built on mechanization and high-volume output. It is a highly productive system with formidable barriers to entry for newcomers at the same time that the average age of farmers is rising.
“Land ownership is a … challenge we face,” said Vilsack. “The question will be who will own this land and whether or not they will have concern for conservation or whether they will have a concern for the bottom line.”
Farmland is one of the most emotional issues in agriculture, tied to preservation of family and a way of life. Some land has been owned by the same family for 100, 150 or 200 years. Farm magazines regularly publish articles on so-called succession planning for operators nearing a generational turnover. Land is a farmer’s greatest asset and effectively it is the retirement account as well.
According to the TOTAL report, landlords anticipate transferring ownership of one-tenth of the 911 million acres of U.S. farmland in the next five years, excluding land already part of a will or expected to be put in a will. “Landlords expect to keep or put nearly 48 percent of these acres in trusts,” said the USDA. Some 21 million acres would be sold to non-relatives and 26 million acres would be sold to a relative or given as a gift.
“More families are creating trust ownerships to make sure land remains in the family for farming or as an investment,” said Joseph Reilly, head of the National Agricultural Statistics Service, which conducted the TOTAL survey.
Nearly 40 percent of farmland was rented during 2014 and nearly 80 percent of the rented land was owned by landlords who are not farmers. There were 1.4 million non-farming individuals and principals in partnerships. “The average age of these landlords is 66.5 years,” said USDA. “This age exceeds that of the average farmer, who is 58.3 years old.”
In the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, two researchers say that for many absentee landlords, “conservation was not a prominent land management motivation.” Recreation “dominates as the most powerful influence,” said researchers Peggy Petrzelka of Utah State University and Andrea Armstrong of Lafayette College.