Iowa City Press Citizen, IA
10-18-07
Lobbying for young farmers
Land access, health care ongoing obstacles
By Kathryn Fiegen
Iowa City Press-Citizen
Steve Swenka, 37, of Tiffin, said he can't remember how long Johnson County
has had a program for young farmers.
He said it's been a long time because his grandmother was in the Junior Farm
Bureau in the 1930s. But, Swenka said, his grandmother's group probably didn't
face the same issues that young farmers do now.
Swenka is a co-chairman of the Johnson County Young Farmer's Program, and
in 2000, he helped re-vitalize the group that had been defunct since the mid
1970s.
"We knew there was a need for it," he said. "We knew there were a lot of young
farmers out there that were disconnected."
Swenka said the Johnson County group currently is taking a look at what can be
done to help young farmers stay in the profession. He said he also is on a
statewide committee through the Iowa Farm Bureau to address issues plaguing
beginning farmers.
"At the state committee, you're really part of the bigger picture," he said.
Swenka said the average person can read that corn and soybean prices are at
almost $4 and $9, respectively, and get the wrong picture of the status of farmers
in Iowa now.
"I think the perception is 'Wow these farmers are making a lot of money,'" he
said.
But the reality is different. Swenka said the costs of land, fuel and machinery
have outpaced increasing market values for grain.
"In some ways, the production costs have gone up faster than the price of the
commodity," he said.
This affects young farmers especially because of disproportionate abilities to
access land and capital, Swenka said.
Gaining access to land
Swenka said helping young farmers gain access to land is one of the issues the
state group is addressing.
Lee Crow, 21, of Oxford, currently farms with his dad on land his family owns. He
said he will eventually farm his own land someday, but knows what he is up
against.
"Yeah, but (going out on your own is) hard though," he said. "It's hard to find
land."
Crow said paying $6,000 an acre to buy land gets even more daunting when he
considers what he would have to spend for his own machinery to farm it.
"It's different than most jobs because you buy everything you use," he said.
Michael Duffy, an economist at Iowa State University and director of the
Beginning Farmer Center, estimated that the cost to rent farmland went up
more than 25 percent in the past year.
Duffy said his center encourages farmers to rent land when they are starting out
to minimize their risk, and legislation that went into effect this summer can help
them do that.
The Beginning Farmer Tax Credit goes to land owners who choose to lease
agricultural assets -- agricultural land, depreciable agricultural property, crops or
livestock -- to beginning farmers. The beginning farmer must have a net worth of
less than $300,000, be older than 18 and have sufficient education and training
to operate and actively participate in the management and labor of a production
operation.
"I don't think it's being used nearly as much as it should be," Duffy said.
Swenka said he has heard from other area farmers who have used the program.
He said the benefit goes both ways -- farmers can make bids to rent land that
they can afford and land owners can still make as much as they would according
to market values.
"It will give that younger farmer that much more bidding power," he said. "I know
a couple of guys that have said, 'Yeah, that's helped.'"
Sustaining a farm
Another issue is sustaining a farm operation and making a living from it, Swenka
said.
To increase farmers' profit margins, Swenka said the Farm Bureau is trying to
promote the use of ethanol in the state. Right now, most gas stations sell
gasoline with about a 15 percent mixture of ethanol, he said. Swenka said he
hopes in the future, most stations will sell E85, or an 85 percent blend.
Duffy said the impulse to up the demand for corn might not have its intended
effect on younger farmers.
"It's a two-edged sword," he said. "On the one hand, it improves the income, but
it also raises the cost of entry."
Duffy said the current high prices for land are due, in part, to the demand for
ethanol. As demand goes up, corn prices go up and then land prices rise. If the
demand went even higher, current land owners may benefit, but new farmers
could find it even more difficult to rent or own land, he said.
Duffy said instead, his center is working with younger farmers to think differently
about producing in Iowa. Instead of trying to compete with large-scale producers,
young farmers should look at niche markets in their area, like organics, high-oil or
high-waxy corn.
"It would help spread the risk out," he said.
Swenka said young farmers also should count on raising livestock in addition to
corn. The up-front investment is less than grain, he said.
"I think that's an avenue a lot of young farmers are getting started in," he said.
Farming as economic development
Duffy said communities -- including ones in the less-rural, eastern half of the
state like Iowa City and Cedar Rapids -- need to start thinking of farming as
economic development.
"We need to be more creative in what we're thinking about for opportunities for
young people to make a living off farming," he said. "(Cities) spend millions of
dollars for economic development to attract new industries, but they let an
economic industry around them die."
Duffy said cities should help farmers work together to form regional processing
centers to produce food products and produce that lessen the community's
reliance on imported goods.
"It gives the individual the opportunity to diversify and know they have a market,"
he said. "Look at how much food in Iowa is imported. We need to think in a
different way."
Getting land and keeping a farm running is still only part of what farmers face,
Swenka said. The costs of health care can hurt even a healthy farm operation, he
said.
"The health care thing is really becoming an issue," he said. "A family policy
without subsidies from your job can be upwards of $10,000 a year. And that is a
good chunk of change."
A study released in September by the University of North Dakota's Center for
Rural Health, Brandeis University and The Access Project found that 20 percent
of farmers and ranchers had outstanding medical debt; one in six postponed
physician visits either because of cost, high medical debt or a heavy workload;
10 percent of respondents said that at least one family member was uninsured at
some point during 2006, and of those people, most said that the period without
insurance was because of cost.
Duffy said younger farmers are more inclined to go without insurance because
they are in generally good health and don't think about it. He said many farmers
have part-time jobs or their spouses work, not because of the extra income, but
because of the health care benefits.
Swenka said health care is one issue his group and the Farm Bureau are hard
pressed to find a solution for. He said the Farm Bureau can offer some
discounted policies, but they aren't enough.
"It comes down to the fact of, what can you do?" he said.