An article in The Commercial last week highlighted the fact that UAPB’s Small Farm Program recently got a grant, aptly named the Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Development Grant, to attract younger people to those careers.
The problem the grant attempts to address is that farmers and ranchers are, on average, getting older.
“With the average age of farmers in Arkansas being 58, new farmers are needed to replace those who will be leaving the business,” said Henry English, head of the program at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. “This program works to meet that need. USDA defines beginning farmer or rancher as someone who has operated a farm or ranch for 10 years or less.”
Farming is a noble profession. But the aging-farmer problem could be occurring because younger people have been made aware of the challenges of going into these lines of work. It’s a bit like heading off to college and aspiring to work in newspapers. That still happens, and many people still make a living in journalism, but the newspaper landscape has changed dramatically with the times, and the needs of the industry are not what they once were. We digress.
A story related to the field of agriculture that was published earlier this year remarked on how crop yields were all pointing up, but because of the high front-end costs of farming and the competitive forces in the world, some farmers were considering throwing in the towel.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“One farmer called me on New Year’s Eve to say he was shutting down, and it really surprised me. He had a good yield, but he just couldn’t swing it another year.” That was from Jeremy Ross, an extension soybean agronomist.
Scott Stiles, extension agricultural economist for the Division of Agriculture, who was quoted in the same story, agreed.
“No doubt we’ll see a few more farm auctions this winter,” Stiles said. “The ag lenders say growers have been really slow to come into their office. I think the farmers have been going to their accountant first, and waiting to see what kind of assistance may be coming from Washington.”
Considering Washington seems to be jettisoning all manner of government programs, we doubt anyone is holding their breath waiting on a windfall of assistance coming from that direction.
“If you owned all your farmland, at today’s prices, you might be able to pencil out a profit,” Stiles said. “But the problem is that most growers are tenant farmers. They have to pay a share or some cash rent. In today’s price environment, it takes some really strong yields just to break even.”
One example had to do with the corn crop with farmers saying 2024’s crop was one of the best. But the sales price for a bushel of corn kept dropping, “making the crop unprofitable for most Arkansas farmers,” according to the story.
Farming has never been an easy way to make a living, with most of the forces that help or hurt farmers being out of their control. It’s a sad state of affairs, though, when enough of those forces conspire to run farmers out of business. Given such extreme circumstances, to be fair to those possible newcomers who will benefit from the UAPB grant, part of the curriculum should include the thorny downside of farming. Maybe some of them, like newspaper people who drift off into public relations, will think better of their idea to be farmers.