Transcripts

MARK STEIL: Farmers like to call it a quiet crisis. Young people have a hard time getting started in agriculture. And those that do have a difficult time staying in business. Beginning farmers typically have scant economic cushion against bad times. With high debt and little cash, they're most likely to go out of business when the agricultural economy sours. The 1980s farm crisis, drought, floods, and soaring machinery costs have thinned the ranks of young farmers.

[COW MOOS]

On a dairy farm near Perham, in Northwest Minnesota, Gabe Gilley is part of an effort to increase the number of young farmers. Gilley is in his mid 20s. He grew up in the Twin Cities and Northeast Minnesota, his agricultural experience limited to helping relatives and friends on their farms. But that taste was enough to bring him to Perham, where he watches over a dairy herd.

GABE GILLEY: Milking cows and doing all the chores during the day, I've got a lot of time to think. You turn things over in your head, especially the first couple of weeks up here. What am I doing? It's quite a shock from working a job, and coming home, and having the rest of your day to yourself to do be as lazy as you want or do whatever you want. But it's been a good shock.

MARK STEIL: Gilley works for John Reuther. Reuther is in his mid-forties, but has been slowed by a back injury. His children are not interested in taking over the farm. Reuther contacted the Passing on the Farm Center in Granite Falls, which put him in touch with a couple of dozen young people interested in farming. Reuther says one of those people was Gabe Gilley. Reuther hired him in April.

JOHN REUTHER: First week or so, I went through things with Gabe. And then I pretty much left him on his own to make the improvements that he'd like to make, and give him a free hand in his decisions, and not try to be on his back or follow him around, be right there watching everything he does to see that he did things the way I did things.

MARK STEIL: Moving quickly through the barn at milking time, Gilley looks like an old hand at dairy farming. He says he likes working with animals, and it shows. He can already identify all the cows by name.

GABE GILLEY: Oh, we've got Kim. We've got a Comet, Randy, Jumbo. That's probably my weakest point is the lack of growing up on it. But if I'd have grown up on a farm, I probably wouldn't want to do it. I can understand, to a point, why the kids here maybe aren't as interested in it as a career. It's a hard way to grow up. But I also think it teaches a lot of good values. And it keeps your kids out of a lot of major problems.

MARK STEIL: Gilley earns a wage now, but within a year, he and Reuther hope to work out an agreement which gives Gilley an ownership stake in the farm, in exchange for his work. Passing on the Farm Center manager, Ivan Anderson says that's a good way to get started. He says a young farmer gradually building assets through labor avoids the crippling debt which ruins many beginning producers.

Anderson says getting young people into farming is the key to maintaining the economic health of rural Minnesota. He worries if that effort fails, family farm numbers will drop sharply, as corporations and investors buy the available land. The average age of farmers is about 54. Anderson says that means the next decade or two will see one of the largest transfers of farmland ever.

IVAN ANDERSON: The majority of the farmers, 50% or more of them will reach the retirement age at the year 2002, across the United States. So what'll happen during that period is a good question. And we hope the ownership stays within individuals. And that's what we hope to help with that transition.

MARK STEIL: Anderson wants to hear from farmers concerned about who will work their land when they retire. He says many wait too long. He says farmers who don't have a family member or relative waiting to take over their operation should begin planning 10 or 15 years before retirement. He says that gives them time to find a new partner, work out a business plan, and begin transferring farm assets. This is Mark Steil, Main Street Radio.