Page 5 - Farm and Food Policy Strategies for 2040 Series

It often happens, he says: “Farmers have invested in their land and in their operation all these
years, so their land is where they will get their retirement money.”

Other likely trends for the years ahead:

• Across the next decade or two, expect the average ages of farmland owners to continue
edging up.

• In fact, like the elder Futch, many are assigning their land in wills, family corporations or
trusts and then just keeping it through
their retirement years, avoiding the
severe tax consequences of selling or
gifting it while alive.

• Farmers will continue to be the most
typical buyers of agricultural land, but
their dominance will slip.

• Non-farmers will own more and more
of the land – especially the rented
acreage.

• Expect, as well, a continued swing,
especially by mid-size and big farm
operators, toward renting more acreage
and owning less.

• There’ll be more women owners and
operators, too, even while there are
fewer farm operators overall.

• Food companies are demanding more traceability and sustainability – often without
paying for the extra costs of doing so. That can make it harder for smaller and mid-size
operations to maintain profitability without scaling up and making investments in new
technology.

How quickly will changes come?

For generations the turnover in ownership of America’s farm and

ranch land has been slow and usually steady, and some experts say
that pace won’t likely change much in the near future.

“I don’t anticipate a faster pace of turnover. I think it’ll be a
continuation of the trend we’ve seen the last several decades,” says

Timothy Fevold, president of the American Society of Farm

Managers and Rural Appraisers.

Futch agrees. Despite the state’s repeated beatings, including

hurricane havoc in fields and orchards and its awful greening Tim Fevold, ASFMRA

disease disaster in citrus groves, “farmland is still going to be in demand,” he says, and values

will continue to ratchet up, as they have been, in “coastal areas, where there is a lot of pressure

for development.”

Besides, he says, “we have too good of a climate (for farmland to not be in demand),” and he

says buyers continue to have endless reasons to invest in farmland there, including solar farms
lately. Thus, he says, “I don’t see any drastic change” in the numbers of land sales.

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