Recently I had the privilege of attending and speaking at a new and beginning farmer conference. This two-day event is held annually to help guide and educate individuals who are either looking to get into farming or have been farming for a few years and might be looking to expand or diversify their operations.

The first day of the conference is for attendees to go on tours to different farming operations and the second day is in-class learning.

One observation I made of the folks attending the conference this year was that a majority of them were people I would classify as middle-aged. According to the most recent Census of Agriculture (2022), the average age of the American farmer is now 58.1 years old. This is 0.6 years older than what was reported in the 2017 Census of Agriculture.

Although this can be concerning, the very first year that the Census of Ag reported the average age was in 1945 and it reported that the average age of the American farmer then was 48.7 years old. Over the course of the last 79 years, that’s an increase of almost exactly 10 years, which does indicate a significant change in when individuals might be starting to farm or for how long they continue to farm.

The other interesting observation that I made was that a great majority of these folks also had at least one spouse who had a full-time job off the farm for consistent income or for health benefits. Although this doesn’t surprise me, as my own family has the same situation, it’s a rather sad notion that a good majority of at least the small-to-medium-sized farms throughout the state have to have this additional income stream to support their families. It is understandable, of course, because when starting a new business, you should have another option to mitigate the risk.

I also noted the diversity of the individuals who attended. It was indeed heart-warming to see folks from all walks of life embracing the farming life. One of the speakers during their presentation made a great point that has stuck in my mind. “Most people... fit into two camps today: they either want to surround themselves in the technological world or the natural world.”

If you do follow social media I get a kick lately out of a lot of memes from my generation that portray how the millennials are all embracing homesteading and getting back to a more simple lifestyle. With this group, regardless of their backgrounds, they all craved to be outside and work with their hands to provide products to the people around them that are high in quality and soothing to the soul.

This combination of observations is in line with what I’ve seen for the last two to three years in working with new and beginning farmers. Initially this group was generally younger and working toward taking over an already established farming operation from family members in a very similar farming operation, such as dairy. It’s this Farmer’s Take that I think we have now tipped the scales in favor of first-generation farmers looking to create the basis for their family legacy. These folks are also reaching out into more creative or less familiar farming options such as solar grazing livestock, raising rare breeds of stock, agrotourism incorporating sunflower mazes and pick-your-own vegetables, helping them keep up with the changing demands of today’s consumers.