Could the Average Age of the Farmer be Turning Younger?

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

For many years, the average age of the American farmers has been gradually moving higher. While that pattern has been very consistent, some are noticing a shift to younger operators. Julia Eberhart is the director of marketing at Bushel, which recently published their state of the farm report. Through this extensive survey, she noticed something very interesting.

Eberhart… “This year we saw a record year of farmers under the age of 50. And I've always positioned this report, and I always lean into biases to be like, 'Yeah, ours does maybe trend younger than the USDA,' because we do probably have a younger farmer set that we're targeting. But this was, like, a pretty significant shift where for the first time, you know, just even looking at, like, the ages between 41 and 50, like, it doubled in the amount of respondents. I do think that's reflective of farming. I think a lot of succession's happening. I think a lot of, like, even if Dad is helping out, some of that business type of decision-making is maybe turned over more to the son. He's going to more of those events, things like that, or daughter. And so I do think this is actually indicative of a shift in agriculture, not just like, oh, we interviewed a bunch of young people."

While the age of the farm owners may not be showing signs of dropping, operators and decision makers seem to be trending younger in some cases.