This is a guest post by Joel Salatin, The Lunatic Farmer.
The average American farmer is over 60 years old. Statistics indicate that in the next 15 years, half of all agriculture equity – land, buildings, and machinery – will change hands as owners die off. This successional tsunami has already started. With 47 percent of America’s farmland leased, more and more land is being managed by people who don’t own it.
Land is becoming available at an unprecedented rate. Perhaps not since the initial settler movement with Little House on the Prairie has this level of land been up for management grabs. Much of this land will be inherited by children who don’t want to farm but who also don’t want to be the generation to lose the land.
While land prices escalate, the opportunities to manage land are also escalating. Allan Nation once said, “Land ownership is an economic defensive measure for folks who already have wealth. Land management is an offensive economic measure for folks who want to gain wealth.”
Quote Worth Re-Quoting
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” ~ Winston Churchill
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