American agriculture is changing. Producers are doing more with less, and agriculture industries are continually finding new markets for their products. Cornwell said this all means little if there is no incentive to bring another generation of farmers and ranchers into the industry. The positive changes in agriculture for young persons are outweighed by the challenges, Cornwell said. While some farmers are seeing an increase in the value of the land, for example, they are finding that it s worth more to sell to developers than to keep the land in production.
Death taxes make it more complicated to pass land from one generation to the next.
And it would be financially difficult for a young person to begin an agriculture operation from scratch because of the high cost of investing in land, equipment and other inputs. While the federal government can t solve all these problems, it can ease the burdens on America s agriculture producers, Cornwell said.