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Study on millennial farmers

The president of a research firm devoted to agriculture says while the number of millennial farmers is small, their impact on farming operations is surprisingly large.

Jan Johnson of Millennium Research tells Brownfield producers between the ages of 18 and 34 make more decisions than they are often given credit for.

“Even though they’re young and might actually still have a job off the farm, they’re making a lot of the decisions regarding seed, feed, fertilizer, crop protection, technology and all those sort of day-to-day or seasonal decisions that farmers make.”

With the majority of U.S. farmers over the age of 55, she predicts fewer farmers will control more land.

“From the work that we do, which tends to concentrate on commercial-sized operations, we find that farmers under 44 years old tend to control farming operations of almost twice the size of older farmers.”

Johnson’s research also finds technology adoption as high on the list of priorities for millennial farmers, and most are extremely well-educated.