State Legislature

Missouri beginning farm bills introduced

Missouri lawmakers have proposed legislation to help beginning farmers that is similar to the beginning farmer program in Iowa.

Versions of the bill are sponsored in both the Missouri House and Senate. Each contains an agricultural assets transfer tax credit, a tax deduction for the sale of ag lands to a beginning farmer and establishes a Beginning Farmer Center through the University of Missouri Extension program (like the one at Iowa State University).

Missouri farmer Ryan Messner researched the Iowa program and told the Missouri Cattlemen Association that Missouri needs that, too.

Messner says he can’t compete with guys paying nine- to 10-thousand dollars an acre for farmland. He tells Brownfield Ag News, “It’s just so hard for a young guy like me to get started. And, why would a land owner that’s been farming – retired – sell to young guy whenever he can sell to a bigger farmer who’s already more established and can give without all the risks that a young man has.”

Messner is an ag business senior at the University of Northwest Missouri and wants to farm like his dad does in their hometown of Stanbury, Missouri…

“I want to farm the fertile bottoms of northwest Missouri and raise a cow-calf operation and maybe run a feed mill or a feed house for Cargill, raising hogs or gelts or feeder pigs.” The average age of Missouri farmers is 56 years old. The average age of farmers nationally is 58.

The proposed legislation authorizes $12 Million in new tax credits.

AUDIO:  Interview with Ryan Messner (3:00 mp3):