A big contibutor to the aging farmer is the fact that there are fewer and fewer young farmers.
Very obvious, of course, but what’s not so obvious is that these newer, younger, farmers are producing 2, or 5, or 10 times as much food as the older farmers they are replacing.
I have a BIL who is still farming at 70, and covering the same amount of land he coverged 30 years ago, (400-500 acres)in the 80’s.
When he retires, since he doesn’t have anyone to hand it down to, it will probably be absorbed into a farm 10 or 15 times as big as his
I hate to see the small family farms disappear. They are a cultural element in rural America and a part of the icon of the rugged independent individual that used to be the backbone of America. I don’t like the big agri-industries that churn out production at the expense of quality and taste.