Disappearing Farms 1

David Sparks Ph.D.

 An observation and a chronic concern is that young people are not as interested in farming as the generations before them and the question is why? I talked with Roger Batt, Executive Director of The Coalition for Agriculture’s Future about such worries and he had some thoughts.

 “The average age of the U.S. farmer is 54 and in the State of Idaho it’s 57. It is really disheartening to see the younger generations not want to be on the family farm and help with that farming aspect. I do know that a lot of farmer have gotten out of farming because of the markets, the market demand is not as high as it probably should be. The input costs always go up, fuel, fertilizer, labor, and as a result it’s hard to stay competitive…it’s hard to make money. A lot of farmers stay in this business and this profession because they choose to, because it’s a lifestyle that they want to continue and hopefully have their kids take over. So, I don’t know what the answer is to that. I would say it’s probably a couple of things.”

 Those couple of things, that the ag community needs to look at seriously, will be discussed tomorrow. Remember the bumper sticker…No Farms…No Food.