Aging Farmers and Agricultural Policy

THE PURPOSE of this article is to explore the aging of our farm operators and to suggest some policy implications inherent in that aging. Farmers in the United States are growing old, largely because men once fully committed to farming leave it reluctantly and slowly; but also because young men refuse to enter farming in past numbers as long as income prospects are so poor. Normal aging processes will greatly reduce the number of farmers in another generation, but for the next two decades the proportion of older farmers will rise considerably. Agricultural policy might well be modified to meet the needs of farmers of different ages. Basic to this discussion is the belief that farm policy should be concerned primarily with the welfare of farm people and adapted to their needs. U.S. farm policy over the past three decades has, in my opinion, been excessively preoccupied with agricultural supply and demand relations, price supports, surpluses and related problems. Such matters are important, and farm income directly affects farm family welfare; but there are many other facets to agricultural policy, which in large part have been neglected. It has long been recognized that higher prices for farm commodities mean relatively little to the farmer who has very little to sell; but agricultural programs to aid low income and noncommercial farmers have been few and faltering. The price-support and related programs have focused on land and on output; it is probable that their chief effect has been to bolster farm land values and to maintain or increase land rents.