06/22/07 Aging Farmers

Aging Farmers. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The old saying goes that the only two things that are for sure are death and taxes. We can deal with taxes but we all get older. Just ask the old guy in my mirror every morning as I shave. But as an agricultural population, we are getting older. Yesterday, Oregon's Republican Senator Gordon Smith chaired a committee to take a look at our aging farmers. SMITH: I held a hearing to focus on agriculture, the aging demographic of agriculture. Today the average farmer is 65 years old and that contrasts with other industries where only 8% are that age in non-agricultural industries. While getting older is not necessarily a problem, there are a number of critical factors leading to the lack of young farmers getting into the industry. SMITH: The to entering agriculture gets higher and higher as the cost of land goes up, the cost of equipment goes up, government payments seem to be more predominately delivering to larger corporate farms and low economic rates of return though that is improving somewhat now it has been a real discouragement to young people going into agriculture and keeping the family farm. Smith is trying to raise awareness to the issue and create some options. SMITH: What we did was hold a hearing to begin to cultivate a national discussion on these issues as we get ready to take up the Farm Bill next year. An interesting fact is that in 1910 there were 6.3 million farms. That number is significantly lower today with on 1.2 million farms. True, we have learned to increase production but today more than ever, farm kids are getting away from the family business. SMITH: It is increasingly true in this information age in where opportunities and incentives are all towards leaving the farm and going into you know all kinds of other fields whether it be law or medicine or engineering, high tech of all kinds. The rates of remuneration are much higher in those fields than they are on the family farm so it is a fact that fewer stay on the farm and our generations have fewer children. Tomorrow Senator Smith talks about some of the options discussed at the hearing. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.