US’s new farmers squeezed out
FOUR years ago, Maeve Taylor and her husband decided to quit their jobs and move their family across the US to start an organic dairy farm in New York. The couple used a federal loan to buy 35 cows and started to learn their new trade on a patch of rented farmland.
But when they began looking for land of their own, they hit their first major hurdle. Even in an area with a long agricultural tradition and lots of farmland, there was nothing to buy – at least at a price they could afford.
“You’d think you could buy something, but hardly any of it is for sale,” Taylor said. “Wealthy landowners live here as retirement homes or have purchased property as a vacation home.”
More than 12.5 million hectares of farmland were lost between 1992 and 2012, according to a major assessment released this week by the American Farmland Trust – double previous estimates.
The advocacy group found nearly twothirds of all US development during that period was on farmland, taken over primarily by the expansion of urban areas and by low-density housing.
Experts say new farmers are being priced out by developers, and the rural landscape risks being radically transformed as farms are split or sold as real estate, unless the government is prepared to safeguard agricultural property.
“We’re at a time in history where farmland isn’t being bought by farmers,” said Holly Rippon-Butler at the National Young Farmers Coalition, an advocacy group. “Our limited agricultural resources could be lost forever. That’s the urgency.”
Nearly 40 million hectares – 10% of agricultural land in the US – is expected to change hands by the end of the decade as elderly farmers retire, according to a 2014 government estimate, the first of its kind.
The average age of US farmers – and agricultural landholders – has been steadily rising, to the point where today many are looking to secure a comfortable retirement.
Almost two-thirds of farmland is managed by someone over 55, and farmers older than 65 now outnumber those under 35 by a six-fold margin, according to the coalition, citing federal statistics.
Taylor said they were repeatedly turned away by sellers who pointedly told them that they wouldn’t be able to afford the asking price. Eventually, driven by falling prices for organic dairy products, they decided to sell their cows in order to pay off their loan – a story that appears to be increasingly common.
The family are now in the process of purchasing land in Vermont. – Reuters