In the Midwestern United States, an increasing number of grain producers, in order to reduce the financial burden on their families, prefer to cheaply “dump” their equipment and find tenants for their land.
Older farmers are retiring and fewer young people are lining up to replace them. Farmers' retirement indicators are not tracked by either US or state agencies, but federal data indicates that ranks of farmers are gradually aging.
The average age of US farm operators was 57.5 years in 2017, compared with 54.3 years in 1997.The number of farms is also declining, as the industry is increasingly consolidating either in the hands of large operators or tiny niche producers. Medium-sized farms i.e. those with annual sales of more than $ 50,000 but less than $ 5 million are steadily declining.
For many families, leaving the farm is a painful but simple calculation: the trade war with China, launched by the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, has been going on for almost 10 months.According to H. Andrew Pyron, executive director of Big Iron Auctions in St. Edward, Nebraska, such factors are currently "speeding up the process" among farmers who decide to resign.