Abra Berens (at left) and Jess Piskor are business partners on their Bare Knuckle Farm in Northport, Michigan. The small-scale farm sells produce through a CSA and at the local farmers market, and hosts private dinners.
Photograph by Fritz Hoffmann, National Geographic
Published September 19, 2014
TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan—Art McManus slowly threads his 2001 white GMC pickup through a rolling grove of cherry trees, their limbs heavy with crimson fruit. Eyeing his 25-year-old grandson working with a crew of farmhands, he stops to watch them attach a mechanical shaker that grips a tree and violently rocks its cherries into a canvas catch frame and conveyor.
"Each one of those trees is like a child—when a limb breaks, it bothers me," says McManus, who planted this orchard of maraschino cocktail cherries more than a decade ago. "It took all this time to get it to this point, and I'd like to keep it going."
But the 73-year-old owner of the 150-acre Southview Orchards isn't sure he can make that happen. None of McManus's three grown children wants to take over the tart cherry farm. (Read "The Next Green Revolution" in National Geographic magazine.)
His son makes good money as a lineman for the local power company. A daughter works as a physical therapist. Another is a stay-at-home mom who isn't interested in farming.
And so McManus remains a reluctant poster boy for the dramatic graying of the American farmer.
The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture farm census, released in May, showed the average age of principal farm operators is now 58 years old. That's seven and a half years older than the average age of a farmer in the early 1980s.
The aging of farmers presents challenges that transcend simple nostalgia for a more agrarian past. With the world population expected to bulge to nine billion by 2050—up from just over seven billion today—there are real concerns about having enough farmers to feed the future planet, agricultural experts say. (Read "A Five-Step Plan to Feed the World" in National Geographic magazine).
And with the trickle of new farmers slowing the adoption of innovative, sustainable farming methods—and hastening the consolidation and industrialization of American agriculture—some family farm advocates say that more than a way of life is at stake. Critics of agricultural corporatization say the trend has torn at the social fabric of communities and degraded the quality of water, soil, and air in rural America. (Related: "Family Farmers Hold Keys to Agriculture in a Warming World.")
"Farmers not retiring is a big drawback for beginning farmers because if the older generation doesn't step aside, there isn't much room for the newer generation," says Mike Duffy, an economics professor emeritus at Iowa State University, in Ames. "The new, beginning farmers of today have to look for niches or attributes so they can generate an income on less acres."
Today, the nation's farmers are 17 years older than the average American worker, with the ranks of farmers who are 75 years and up outnumbering those in their prime working years of 35 to 44.
One big reason U.S. farmers are going gray: spiraling costs. Five years ago, McManus had two prospective buyers approach him, but both backed out when he tallied expenses: Around $7,000 for an acre of land. Another $300,000 for equipment. And then there's taxes, crop insurance, fuel, and supplies, which shave the profit margin even more.
McManus's grandson, Dan Worm—the one behind the mechanical shaker—is enthusiastic about a farming life, but the 25-year-old is a decade or more away from being able to buy his granddad out and pay taxes before he can take over the farm. In the meantime, Worm is likely to continue working two jobs while taking accounting classes and buying a little bit of land and equipment at a time.
"Younger farmers can't afford to buy in," says Judy McManus, Art's wife. "Everything is sky-high."
High Prices in the Cherry Capital
More than 70 percent of the nation's tart cherries for pies, yogurt, preserves, juice, and dried fruit are grown in and around Michigan's Lower Peninsula, specifically in the "pinkie" of the mitten-shaped state. The sandy soil, rolling hills, and Lake Michigan breezes are ideal for cherry trees.
And ever since celebrity chef Mario Batali started summering in this part of Michigan, home of the National Cherry Festival, agri-tourists and well-heeled retirees have helped turn local farmland into shopping malls and subdivisions. The development pressures have squeezed land prices higher and higher.
When fourth-generation cherry and apple grower Gene Garthe, 66, bought land near the peninsula town of Northport in the 1980s, the price was about $2,000 an acre. Then a great-uncle sold off what had become known as "the Garthe bluffs," and second homes sprouted on the scenic cliffs between Gene Garthe's cherry groves and Lake Michigan. Today, the going rate for farmland here is between $6,500 and $10,000 an acre—more if it's suitable to grow grapes for the area's burgeoning wine industry.
"These inflated land prices will determine what a person can do," says Garthe, who has no children and isn't sure what will become of his farm when he retires.
The cost of increasingly scarce farmland has spiked in many parts of the country, following the national real estate market.
Agricultural economists Ani Katchova of the University of Kentucky, in Lexington, and Mary Ahearn of the U.S. Department of Agriculture have studied the effects of the land price boom on aspiring farmers. "Most young and beginning farmers do not inherit their land, and, instead, purchase or lease farmland to start their businesses and grow over time," they wrote in an academic paper earlier this year.
"In today's record-breaking high land value and farmland rental markets, this is doubly challenging."
The mechanization that took much of the backbreaking labor out of farming and allows senior citizens to keep plowing is another barrier to entry for beginner farmers. One mechanical cherry harvester can cost $200,000 or more.
Between 2007 and 2012, Michigan saw a 21.5 percent drop in the number of new farmers. Nationwide, the decrease was about the same, at nearly 20 percent.
Toll on Family Farms
Here in cherry country, a number of small growers in recent years have been bought out by larger growers such as Redpath Orchards, one of Michigan's largest fruit farms.
Redpath's Chris Alpers, 31, a third-generation grower who works with his father, David, 55, worries that the dearth of young farmers will lead to more family farms being bought out by bigger farms like his and by even larger agribusinesses.
"If you're my age, you have no chance to get into farming [on this scale] if it's not in your family," says Alpers, who carries a walkie-talkie to connect with field hands. "It's impossible—you can't have ten acres and make a career of it."
While 96 percent of farms are run by families, there's no question that U.S. agriculture is corporatizing. In 2007, the size of an average farm was 418 acres. By 2012, that had grown to 430 acres.
As farms get bigger, says Bob Young, chief economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation, "you don't need as many folks involved in direct production."
Lindsey Lusher Shute, executive director of the National Young Farmers Coalition, says that more corporate farmers, and fewer family operations, means fewer young farmers.
"As farm families have struggled over the last century under the effects of globalization, farmland speculation, industrialization, and competing land uses, many discouraged their children from staying on the farm and the generational farm transition was broken," she says, warning that "barriers to new farmers are barriers to national food security."
Few of Chris Alpers's friends are clamoring to work in a dirty, risky business that's increasingly affected by climate change. Two years ago, an unusually early spring followed by a late freeze wiped out Michigan's fruit crop, the second "once in a lifetime" loss in just over a decade.
"Today I got up at 4 a.m. and won't leave until dark," says Alpers, sitting in his home office. "None of my friends who I went to college with think that's smart."
Farming Like It's 1948
"See how ergonomic, how light this is?"
Jess Piskor shows off his handmade hoe, which looks like an oversize razorblade on a stick. Nearby is a hand-push seeder from the 1930s. Out back sits a refurbished 1948 Allis-Chalmers G tractor, which was cutting-edge technology back when most farmers tilled fewer than a hundred acres.
There's no big or expensive equipment at Bare Knuckle Farm, the four-acre operation where Piskor and co-owner Abra Berens, both 32, grow vegetables and raise free-range pigs. Set in a valley between two cherry groves on Michigan's Lower Peninsula, their vegetable plot is "not a 'cute' farm," says Berens.
"This is a new model," she says, with "the idea of going back to some of the old-school ways."
Piskor, who first turned soil on his grandfather's land in 2009, and Berens, who grew up on a southern Michigan pickle farm, insist that they're not niche farmers. Like many locavores their age, they are passionate about growing fresh, healthy food for their community and about reconnecting people to the land that sustains them.
Bare Knuckle Farm sells food to a local children's center where the 4- to 7-year-olds "know me as their farmer," Piskor says. "I like getting kids to eat their vegetables."
Yet the duo are typical of beginner farmers who must be creative to make ends meet on a small bit of land. Berens, who cooks professionally at a suburban Chicago restaurant in the winter, stages monthly summer farm dinners in their tool shed to earn more from what they grow. They also sell direct to consumers at local farmers markets and through community supported agriculture (CSA) so that they can keep more of what they earn.
Piskor, who leases land from his grandfather, hopes to buy his own farm someday, but that will require a lot more capital than he has at the moment. He hopes to pay himself a salary of $30,000 this year after working without pay for the past two years.
"There are more people who want to do this than land available" Piskor says. "I wish I had more peers my age because it would be fun to sit down and talk shop together."
Economies of Scale
Small-scale farmers like Piskor and Berens thrive by catering to local customers and well-heeled tourists.
"But not in a way that's going to feed nine billion people," says Nikki Rothwell, district horticulturist and coordinator at the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Station. "We're not going to feed even Leelanau County on pea shoots."
Let alone Detroit. While younger niche farmers have found an eager market in some rural upscale regions like northern Michigan, many city dwellers with more limited means live in food deserts with little access to fresh food. And they can't afford $9 beet salads and $4 radishes.
To produce and distribute large quantities of affordably priced food, Rothwell and others say, larger farm operations are needed.
Those operations include Redpath Orchards, where Chris and David Alpers work. It isn't huge by row crop standards, but its 920 acres of westward sloping hills overlooking Lake Michigan is a capital-intensive operation that uses the latest technology and profits from economies of scale.
The Alperses' inventory includes three mechanical cherry harvesters, a precise GPS to evenly plant and space trees, and an electric-eye sprayer that shuts off over empty patches. Redpath is also experimenting with high-density apples, a new way to plant that increases the number of trees per acre from 200 to 2,000 to produce more and higher quality fruit.
"A lot of farmers who don't have that next generation coming up, they're not open to new technology," says David Alpers, who frequently talks over new methods and equipment with his son.
Carl Zulauf, an agricultural economist at Ohio State University, in Columbus, says that when it comes to upgrading to newer technology, "people who adopt something new tend to be younger."
And when it comes to trying new seed varieties or introducing more sustainable cultivation practices, "that's where we see the most gap between younger and older," Zulauf says, "with older producers saying, 'I've farmed this way, it's been successful for me, I'm still farming, and I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing."
More Than Just a Farmer
Nic Welty looks down at a plot of fennel and does the math. At $2 a bulb, this square will bring $34 at the local farmers market. But if he serves them in salads at his chic restaurant in Suttons Bay on the Lower Peninsula, he'll make triple that.
"I find the best market," says Welty, 32, "or I build it."
A torn-shirt entrepreneur with dirt beneath his fingernails, Welty majored in economics and has a master's degree in developmental biology and genetics. He grows vegetables on eight acres, including in hoop houses—greenhouses that trap heat from the sun to lengthen the growing year by several months.
But, he says, he makes a living only because "I own every step along the way," from seedling to plate.
Besides the 9 Bean Rows restaurant in Suttons Bay, he and his wife Jen own a bakery and farm stand. They feed 35 families through their CSA and sell at local farmers markets. Welty is also working with 15 other small-scale farmers to share marketing and distribution costs for a food hub that would sell their produce to local schools, hospitals, and supermarkets.
Welty dreams of franchising his business model to break soil for thousands of five-acre farms across the country. But like other young farmers, including many already deep in college debt, access to capital and credit remains a stumbling block. When he's not farming, Welty teaches financial management classes to local farmers and works through local nonprofits to convince local bankers they should invest in the next generation of farmers.
It's hard work, and sometimes, he says, he wishes he didn't have to do so much selling.
"There's a beautiful simplicity," he says, "to be able to just focus on growing."
Unsure why this articles advances the assumption farmers raise the majority of food Americans consume in the first place. Isn't the largest issue truly the corporatization and consolidation of agriculture? Aren't family farmers and independent farmers less than 1% of the total agricultural community?
This seems to be the most short-sited line in the whole article: "Farmers not retiring is a big drawback for beginning farmers because if the older generation doesn't step aside, there isn't much room for the newer generation" The article goes on to say that young folks don't have access to capital, land, training, experience etc.
One significant solution is to encourage, support, request, and pay older farmers to stick around and teach the young ones. To set aside part of their land to help non-related farmers get a start. Many of them would be passionate enough to do that. Let's not have our older farmers retire without harvesting some of their life-long wisdom. Land-based people hold so much body knowledge that will be hard-won, if not impossible for 25 year-old farmers.
Let's not be so quick to throw out the old.
"But not in a way that's going to feed nine billion people, says Nikki Rothwell, district horticulturist and coordinator at the NW Mi. Horticultural Research Station. "We're not going to feed even Leelanau County on pea shoots".
Ok, at the risk of sounding cruel and heartless I'm just going to say it: maybe we're not supposed to try and feed nine billion people, Nicky. The real question is not how but why.
And the snippy peashoot retort was cute but unbecoming of an Ag professional living in the second most diverse agricultural state in the U.S.
The price of land is a big obstacle. But so is the uneven playing field that subsidizes huge monoculture farms with tremendous environmental costs. We can play frankenstein with the genetics but nature seems to bat last: superbug resistant crops that have a very short shelf life and require constant re-engineering and reinvestment sounds a lot more like job security than food security.
Great article that captures what many of my peers are going through. I was fortunate to grow up in a farming family, but it's nearly impossible to break into the industry if you don't have those family connections.
Another situation families are running into are too many family members trying to be involved, which pushes others out. Other families have farms that were large enough to support the family 50 or even 20 years ago, but are now too small for the next generation. Or they are losing rental ground as the families who own that ground age and pass their land down to the next generation, who are not interested in keeping that land or have ties with another farmer who wants to farm it.
Running a family farm is a lot more complicated than it looks. Unfortunately, there's many instances of family feuds that ruin relationships and can even cause the farm to go under. But it works out for most families.
A very well-written article!
Backyard 'victory' gardens aren't going to solve this, because 1940s are no longer with us (Smithsonian Institution has article on victory gardening). Public schools were a matter of national defense when WW I found so many illiterates drafted; highways were when returning WW II combatants saw national highways needed. This seems to be as 'vital' as those things were. Cities must be able to get food locally, hopefully redefined from "within 400 miles" to something that doesn't involve so much transportation.
Why are there not more family trusts set up to own family farms? Passing more legislation is not necessarily the way to solve problems.
A fairer and more far-sighted Farm Bill might have saved the family farm in America instead of handing over billions in subsidies to corporate agribusiness conglomerates, who are able to lard Congress with sizable campaign contributions (and offshore their tax liabilities), and against whom small farmers can't compete.
Organic farming on a relatively smaller but far more diverse and sustainable scale might have been promoted by our political leaders. Instead, we're moving into a dystopian future of polluted soil, water and air, and genetically modified "foods" whose negative impact on health and the environment are yet to be fully appreciated.
Oppertunities for anything are being squeezed by the lack of moderate incomes and wealth in the bottom 90%. Gross excesses in capitalism, industry, lobbying, cronyism and government have left little room for fair opportunities for us little guys. Paying for an education, needed to function in our system has become all-consuming. We are so busy covering our costs and paying the profiteers, there is little time left to explore and solve the problems. Don't look at goverment initiatives as hand-outs and freebies; but rather, fertilizer for a vibrant and diverse society as a whole. Regulations don't spring up like weeds for no reason. There are unintended consequences for every good intention. We must find a balance in our society and being politically involved is the only to way address your concerns. Being dogmatically bitter will not solve anyones problems.
Farmer's age keeping up is the same matter in japan. Probably Japanese farmer's average age is far higher than USA. I heard the income of whole the world farmer is low in general. That is why young new people does'nt enter this field which most important matter to sustainable world. Most important thing is which we can take adequate quantity of food steadily or not. We should pay more attention to the agri business and circumstances.
I am no expert on the subject and I have seen what has happened over the years in my home area of north west n.j. .I have one friend my age who got into farming a few years back only because he had the money and conections from owning a trucking co, and contracting with conagra. only one other farmer is still doing it because they were and still are the biggest farm in that are witch tend to gobble up all the smallest farms when they go belly up.i do believe the idea of all these small micro farms will work but only to a point .we need those as a safety net until something more can be done in that direction. one thing I might suggest to give some one a better prospective of the situation is to watch a documentary called THE FARMERS WIFE on PBS . you can find it on youtube. our nature is to try to survive despite our present government trying to make survival illegal with all its hoop's ,rules , restrictions and .expensive compliance standards that only the rich can afford
I don't know the solution to filling the shoes of current farmers of large farms,
but I think as we face this reality of these farms dwindling, individual families can be doing some things in order to secure ourselves, such as gardening on our own land. It would help us ride out the the stressful times that are sure to come with rising food and other product costs. Of course we can't all live completely off our own produce, but we can do enough to supplement, which eases the demand placed on the world. It may not help with sustaining larger farms, but maybe what we need now as a society is focusing on our own smaller communities and supporting each other in those immediate circles as much as we can. I think there is still a need for larger farms, but I think it is probably good for it to lessen and smaller communities and families take more responsibility to provide for themselves and those immediately around them.
I think it is important for our future that we start to simplify and try to do as much as we can on our own and supporting and strengthening our families and small communities, so that we aren't putting a large burden for government and larger farms and businesses to provide for.
can be key if you’re just getting started. The bill also expands these conservation incentives to include veteran farmers as well.
The bill renews the Conservation Reserve Program – Transition Incentives Program and provides for $33 million to incentivize retiring landowners to sell or rent to a beginning farmers. The program provides the retired/retiring land owners with two additional annual rental payments on land enrolled in expiring CRP contracts, on the condition they sell or rent this land to a beginning farmer or rancher or to a socially disadvantaged producer. Military veteran farmers will also be newly eligible for this program. @Steven Knepprath
·Conservation for Beginning Farmers:
The final bill maintains the conservation set-asides (5% each) for beginning farmers/ranchers and socially disadvantaged producers in the working lands programs the Conservation Stewardship Program and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).
Additionally, a policy change in EQIP means a beginning farmers or socially disadvantaged producers can receive a 50 percent advance payment. This advance payment is aimed at helping beginning farmers cover the upfront cost of a project, which @Steven Knepprath
Please any beginning farmers come into a FSA or NRCS (Natural Resource Conservation Service) office and ask about these programs I know there are special cost sharing rates and programs to help beginning farmers.
The NRCS is a non-regulatory federal agency that is in every state in almost every county. @Steven Knepprath
2. The new bill improves the Down Payment Loan Program, by increasing the total value of farmland to be purchased from $500,000 to $667,000. The bill maintains the loan programs priority focus on beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers.
3. Policy improvements to Direct and Guaranteed Farm Ownership and Operating loans include:
Info at http://www.beginningfarmers.org/2014-farm-bill-update-beginning-farmer-programs/ @Steven Knepprath
The New Farm Bill, FSA, and NRCS
1. The new farm bill makes the Microloan program offed by the Farm Service Agency (FSA) permanent. These microloans will be funded through FSA’s existing Direct Operating Loan program, and will have a maximum loan amount of $50,000, which is much lower than the $300,000 loan cap for regular FSA farm operating loans.
These loans are intended to cover smaller purchases and are especially attractive to young and beginning farmers. The microloan program features a simplified and streamlined application process, and will require less paperwork. Additionally, microloans made to beginning and veteran farmers will be exempt from the term limits that otherwise apply on direct operating loans. The new farm bill also provides a pilot program where intermediary lenders can partner with USDA to offer microloans. @Steven Knepprath
Did you vote for a democrat or a republican in the last (or any) election? If so... this is your fault. You have exactly the kind of govt you voted for. So please be quiet about it already. When you clowns stop reelecting the gifted stupid things will change. But make no mistake whose fault it is. If you're still confused... consult your bathroom mirror. There's your problem right there.
Interesting article, but are there any solutions out there? Are farmers with nobody to take over for them willing to work financially with younger people who would like to get into farming? I know there are lots of educational programs out there, but the upfront cost is what keeps people out - what are the options out there that would help a younger family purchase a farm?
Thank you US Government for destroying farmers of America with all your regulations and taxes.
@lee warren But I don't need them to teach me, I need them to sell me or at the very least rent me, their land. I've worked on farms for years, I've had lots of training already. I know dozens of young people who are approaching 35, 40 or even older that are still "renting" or "working into" their parents' operation.
Farming is often a very solitary operation. It might sound like a nice idea to have older farmers work with younger farmers for long periods of time, but I've seen it fail many times over because they just can't get along. Young farmers are going into the business because they enjoy solitary work, and older people have been running their own operation for decades and aren't used to managing other people, let alone letting them actually have a say in how things are done.
@A. M. Thank you for your response about my comments about pea shoots, A.M., but I hope you can appreciate that quotes often are misused in media situations.Upon reading my quote, I contacted the author directly to express my displeasure.In addition, I sent responses to my friends at BareKnuckle Farms and 9 Bean Rows to let them know that my quote was not used as it was intended.Jess, Abra, and the Weltys are innovative, progressive, and excellent farmers, and we are fortunate to have them in our region.
As someone that works hard for and promotes all scales of agriculture in northwest Michigan, this article was frustrating on many levels. The author and National Geographic had a vision of agriculture they wanted to depict, and they molded our area, farms, and farmers to plug into that story. The story also included twisting my quote to fit into their version of agriculture in Leelanau County.
@A. M. Thank you for responding to Ms. Rothwell's "feed the world" comments. Two farms mentioned, Bare Knuckle Farm and 9 Bean Rows Farm are working examples of scale and limits—two concepts ignored by land-grant universities and mainstream agribusiness. Each farm is keenly aware that these ideas intimately tie them to their community and, in turn, facilitate a moral and ethical link to those families they provide wholesome food. When individuals approach with hubris uncensored notions of feeding the Earth’s 9 billion inhabitants, agriculture is forced into a realm that must justify depleting the land and health of its people for an unobtainable fiction—a fiction created by those not interested in health but rather the bottom line.
I was with you until "genetically modified foods." The science is in and every scientific study worthy of the name says GM foods are not dangerous to our health. Any bad effects to the environment from mono-cropping or over-application of herbicides and pesticides also apply to non-GM crops. The latest global population predictions have increased anticipated world population to 13 billion by year 2100. How are we going to feed that population if we don't use every tool available to us? I'm a member of a CSA and the vegetables are delicious, but CSAs are not a realistic option for most of the world's population who we are having trouble feeding right now at 7 billion.
@Jed Dunn Sorry Jed. Your post is all jargon and acronyms so I didn't even understand it.
@Ginge Vitis This issue will never be resolved by who you voted for. Both parties are in the pockets of Big Ag. I don't doubt that small farmers will continue to be thrown just enough bones to create the next market trend to be co-opted by the Big Guys (like they did with 'organic'). So that's just 'what it is'. The bright side is that all politics is local. Culture eventually drives policy or continues to create a parallel economy that can no longer be ignored.
@Dee Bow Regulations don't spring up like weeds for no reason. There are unintended consequences for every good intention. We must find a balance in our society and being politically involved is the only to way address your concerns. Being dogmatically bitter will not solve anyones problems.
Sounds like what a development envoy might argue to the farmer in Africa. "CSAs are not a realistic option. Here, sign these forms for the loans necessary to buy these terminated GMO seeds and the licence to build the necessary infrastructure to extract valuable mineral resources--- er., supply your mega-farm with irrigation water, by the way, we'll be snaking a couple pipes with fracking fluid down next to the well head to see if there are any natural gas down there... that will help you pay off that loan we just gave you... plus make some shiny adverts in the New York Times for all the rubes back in the 1st world who think that the whole point is feeding the world's population....
1) Please stop trying to feed 13 billion people. That's insanity.
2) As for scientific studies, follow the money.
3) Finally, there is what we know that we know. And there is what we know that we don't know. What always comes back to bite us in the you-know-what is that which we don't know that we don't know. There are so many examples. Thalidomide is one.
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How do we feed nine billion people by 2050, and how do we do so sustainably?
