Age of Iowa Farmland Owners Rising
(Ames Tribune) Chad Fertig is one of the lucky ones. The 21-year-old senior in agricultural studies will graduate from Iowa State University in December, and after that he will return to his hometown of Wall Lake to take up the family business.
“I farm 160 acres with my grandpa right now, and my dad also has some row-crop acres,” Fertig said. “We also have a dairy operation. Tomorrow, we’re hanging rafters for a new barn.”
The Fertig family has farmed the same land in Sac County for 41 years, and Chad will be the fourth generation to enter the business. Family farms such as the Fertig’s are among the oldest representations of the “American Dream,” but these kinds of farmers are becoming a minority in a rapidly changing farming culture.
Mike Duffy, economist for ISU Extension, has been conducting a study on farmland ownership in Iowa and said his research has produced some interesting observations.
First, the age of Iowa’s farmland owners is rapidly increasing. Between 1900 and 1930, Duffy said about 15 percent of Iowa’s farmland was owned by people over the age of 66. Today, it’s closer to 54 percent.
“It’s been a fairly steep increase,” Duffy said. “A lot of people might say, ‘Well, so what,’ but I think there is a lot of ‘so what’ to this in the sense that who owns the land and how it’s being farmed says a lot about who we are as a society.”
Many of these older landowners rent out their land, Duffy said, and though the overall percentage of rented land in Iowa hasn’t changed much over the years, the patterns of land rental have varied.
Currently, about half of Iowa’s farmland is farmed by 20 percent of the farmers, who rent between 50 and 99 percent of the land they farm, according to Duffy’s report.
These changes in renting practices and the age of land owners hold several implications, Duffy said. One big concern is for young farmers who are hoping to start their own operations.
“I think one of the biggest things we’re going to see is it will be harder for young people to get access to land, if the elderly continue to hold it,” Duffy said.
Another concern is whether landowners who are distant from the land they rent will take an interest in conservation and land stewardship, Duffy said.
Neil Hamilton, director of the Agricultural Law Center at the Drake University Law School, said he remembers an old saying from when he was growing up in rural Adams County: “Farm it like it’s rented ground.”
“Think of this situation: Did you treat the apartment you lived in as a student in the same way that you treat the house you live in? It’s just a different relationship,” Hamilton said.
Though there are government farm programs that encourage conservation and good stewardship of the land, Hamilton said many landowners are unaware of these initiatives, and unaware of the needs on the land that they own.
On the other hand, the farmers operating the land are concerned primarily about making their rent payments, and if they aren’t in a long-term lease agreement, they are less likely to want to spend money on long-term conservation efforts, Hamilton said.
One way that Hamilton is working to raise awareness of this issue is by compiling a “Sustainable Agriculture Land Tenancy Guide,” a booklet to instruct landowners about what conversations they should be having with their tenants.
Another way to improve the situation, Hamilton said, is for landowners and tenants to sign longer-term leasing agreements that would provide more incentive to practice good land stewardship.
Fertig said he agrees that farmers hold a different attitude toward their own land, rather than the land they rent.
“Take fertilizer, for example,” Fertig said. “Say you’ve only got a one-year lease on a piece of ground, you’re not going to go stick five years worth of fertilizer in it, you’re going to put just enough to get through the year.”
The same goes for controlling pH levels, he said, and other types of conservation efforts.
However, those problems only come into play once a farmer actually obtains some land, which, Fertig said, has become incredibly difficult for young farmers to do. He said he’s fortunate to have land in the family, but the majority of his classmates will graduate without land to farm.
“A lot of them will just get jobs in town,” he said.
http://www.amestrib.com/articles/2010/07/23/ames_tribune/news/doc4c4a629bc22c3480724668.txt
“I farm 160 acres with my grandpa right now, and my dad also has some row-crop acres,” Fertig said. “We also have a dairy operation. Tomorrow, we’re hanging rafters for a new barn.”
The Fertig family has farmed the same land in Sac County for 41 years, and Chad will be the fourth generation to enter the business. Family farms such as the Fertig’s are among the oldest representations of the “American Dream,” but these kinds of farmers are becoming a minority in a rapidly changing farming culture.
Mike Duffy, economist for ISU Extension, has been conducting a study on farmland ownership in Iowa and said his research has produced some interesting observations.
First, the age of Iowa’s farmland owners is rapidly increasing. Between 1900 and 1930, Duffy said about 15 percent of Iowa’s farmland was owned by people over the age of 66. Today, it’s closer to 54 percent.
“It’s been a fairly steep increase,” Duffy said. “A lot of people might say, ‘Well, so what,’ but I think there is a lot of ‘so what’ to this in the sense that who owns the land and how it’s being farmed says a lot about who we are as a society.”
Many of these older landowners rent out their land, Duffy said, and though the overall percentage of rented land in Iowa hasn’t changed much over the years, the patterns of land rental have varied.
Currently, about half of Iowa’s farmland is farmed by 20 percent of the farmers, who rent between 50 and 99 percent of the land they farm, according to Duffy’s report.
These changes in renting practices and the age of land owners hold several implications, Duffy said. One big concern is for young farmers who are hoping to start their own operations.
“I think one of the biggest things we’re going to see is it will be harder for young people to get access to land, if the elderly continue to hold it,” Duffy said.
Another concern is whether landowners who are distant from the land they rent will take an interest in conservation and land stewardship, Duffy said.
Neil Hamilton, director of the Agricultural Law Center at the Drake University Law School, said he remembers an old saying from when he was growing up in rural Adams County: “Farm it like it’s rented ground.”
“Think of this situation: Did you treat the apartment you lived in as a student in the same way that you treat the house you live in? It’s just a different relationship,” Hamilton said.
Though there are government farm programs that encourage conservation and good stewardship of the land, Hamilton said many landowners are unaware of these initiatives, and unaware of the needs on the land that they own.
On the other hand, the farmers operating the land are concerned primarily about making their rent payments, and if they aren’t in a long-term lease agreement, they are less likely to want to spend money on long-term conservation efforts, Hamilton said.
One way that Hamilton is working to raise awareness of this issue is by compiling a “Sustainable Agriculture Land Tenancy Guide,” a booklet to instruct landowners about what conversations they should be having with their tenants.
Another way to improve the situation, Hamilton said, is for landowners and tenants to sign longer-term leasing agreements that would provide more incentive to practice good land stewardship.
Fertig said he agrees that farmers hold a different attitude toward their own land, rather than the land they rent.
“Take fertilizer, for example,” Fertig said. “Say you’ve only got a one-year lease on a piece of ground, you’re not going to go stick five years worth of fertilizer in it, you’re going to put just enough to get through the year.”
The same goes for controlling pH levels, he said, and other types of conservation efforts.
However, those problems only come into play once a farmer actually obtains some land, which, Fertig said, has become incredibly difficult for young farmers to do. He said he’s fortunate to have land in the family, but the majority of his classmates will graduate without land to farm.
“A lot of them will just get jobs in town,” he said.
http://www.amestrib.com/articles/2010/07/23/ames_tribune/news/doc4c4a629bc22c3480724668.txt
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