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In the U.S., farming is often a legacy business. One generation passes the farm to the next. But a different agricultural economy is making that transition harder. Harvest Public Media's Tadeo Ruiz Sandoval reports how steep costs and economic uncertainty are influencing farm succession plans.
TADEO RUIZ SANDOVAL, BYLINE: There are close to 2 million farms in the U.S., and according to census data, most are family owned. Mike Langseth's farm in North Dakota is one of them. He says his great-great-grandfather built the farm's home more than 100 years ago.
MIKE LANGSETH: Every generation has had to do some sort of a fairly serious remodel and, you know, make it theirs.
SANDOVAL: Langseth became the farm's owner three years ago, after a long period of shouldering more of the expenses his father had covered.
LANGSETH: Every time it stepped up to a bigger percentage of the farm, it was always a little bit of a financial stretch to have that money to operate on a bigger scale. Same thing when it came time to start buying the machinery, all of a sudden, that felt like a stretch. It was like, whoa, OK, now I got to do that.
SANDOVAL: And Langseth took over his family farm at a tough moment for the agricultural economy. Shifting trade policies, tariffs and supply chain disruptions have raised the price of gas, machinery, fertilizer and other operating expenses. Wesley Tucker, a farm and ranch transition specialist at the University of Missouri, says that's partly motivating more farmers to hand off ownership to the next generation, and these new farm owners face many challenges.
WESLEY TUCKER: In general, the amount of capital it takes to farm today - land is a big part of that. We would (ph) just look at the price of machinery, you know, and the economies of scale it takes to be successful.
SANDOVAL: It's not easy for the new generation to handle these challenges. Many are in survival mode. In Minnesota, Andy Maier's family grows sugar beets, corn and soybeans. Maier is a few years away from taking over the family business, and to do so, he has to buy out his dad and uncle. And for that to happen, the farm has to do well.
ANDY MAIER: I don't have, like, a big savings account somewhere. You know, it's all tied, you know, pretty much tied up in the business. So, like, our - the extra money that we make, if we have a good year, it just stays here and gets reinvested.
SANDOVAL: And lately, good years have been hard to come by. Maier says he remembers when crop prices fell in 2018, a lot of people, even in his neighborhood, quit farming altogether.
A MAIER: People my age, they had a college degree. Why am I out here working real hard and not gaining anything when I could just go to town and get a decent job at a bank or at a wherever, doing something much easier, much less stressful, and make a decent living for my family?
SANDOVAL: But for Maier, it's rewarding to keep the farm going.
A MAIER: It isn't like the work of a day. It's the work of several years, decades, generations.
SANDOVAL: It's a bittersweet time for his father, Rick Maier, as he prepares to pass on the family farm. Even though he won't own it, he says he'll always worry about the farm's future.
RICK MAIER: The heritage or whatever you want to call it of 100 years, I don't want that to go away. You know, hopefully...
A MAIER: Well, and...
R MAIER: ...Hopefully it makes 200 or whatever.
SANDOVAL: And Maier says he'll be there to help his son as he makes the farm his own. For NPR News, I'm Tadeo Ruiz Sandoval in Barnesville, Minnesota.
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