Aging farm workforce raises concerns about future of U.S. food supply

The 1980s farm crisis didn’t just impact balance sheets, it changed people’s interest in being involved in agriculture.

“The farm prices didn’t just hurt those in production, the ripple effect was across the industry,” said Aaron Locker, who has spent his career helping agricultural businesses find talent and leadership.

Locker, who serves as managing director at Delaware-based Kincannon & Reed, an executive search firm focused on the food and agriculture industry, testified during a Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing Wednesday, June 4.

He joined several others including American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall in the hearing titled “The Aging Farm Workforce: America’s Vanishing Family Farms.”

From his perspective, Locker said the agriculture industry has an “acute succession challenge.”

Between 1980 and 1990 while college enrollment went up 7% nationwide, enrollment in land grant university colleges of agriculture dropped by nearly 37%, he said.

“That gap is being realized today in board rooms, field offices and agronomy teams. Meanwhile, the complexity of agriculture is growing — precision and decision ag technologies, automation, AI on the farm and sustainability initiatives,” Locker said. “They’re moving fast, but fewer than one-third of ag companies that we work with have formal succession plans. That’s not just a statistic; that’s a systemic risk.”

Job growth in agriculture is steady, around 3%, but tech and finance are growing three times faster, he said.

“So, we’re not just competing for talent. We are competing for leadership, and that matters, because … food security is national security,” Locker continued. “Attracting and retaining the next generation also depends on profitability and predictability.

“When farmers and agribusinesses face constant regulatory uncertainty or rising compliance costs, it discourages investment and makes leadership succession harder,” Locker said. “To keep agriculture strong, we must reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens and ensure producers and those across the industry see a future worth building toward.”

Locker pointed to Congress as having a vital role in securing the industry’s future, adding investment in people is key.

“The food and agriculture industries are evolving fast, but our leadership pipeline is not keeping up,” he said. “This is not just a workforce issue, it’s a threat to our most essential system — our food supply.”

Discussion at the hearing also highlighted the aging of American farmers, with one-third over the age of 65. Since 2007, the U.S. has lost more than 200,000 farms, equating to 40 million acres.

Increased costs, regulatory burdens and natural disasters are deterring new farmers. Those testifying reiterated the need for a five-year farm bill and support for young and beginning farmers.

“Farmers will plant the most expensive crop ever planted this year, and many have faced a tough decision of whether or not to even plant that crop,” Duvall said, adding farm debt is expected to increase in 2025 to more than $560 billion.

He also cautioned a farmer mental health crisis could be on the horizon as farmers become over-leveraged with credit.

Recruiting and retaining workers also continues to be a challenge for farmers.

“Of course, we cannot paint the full picture on this issue without talking about our employees, and many of those employees are like family, and they are aging right alongside us and that’s a problem because most Americans, they aren’t interested in working on our farms anymore, and they’re not interested in coming back to the farm, despite the big investments that we’re making in recruiting people to come back to the farm,” Duvall said. “Congress needs to recognize the farmworkers as essential to feeding and fueling our country. It’s time to modernize our outdated system, and only Congress can meaningfully do that.”

• This story was distributed through a cooperative project between Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Press Association. For more food and farming news, visit FarmWeekNow.com.