As the average age of farmers in the United States continues to get older, people continue to raise concerns for the future of the industry. The 2022 Census of Agriculture reported the average age of US farmers rose to 58.1 years old, which is about a half year older than reported in 2017. However, Carl Zulauf, a retired Ohio State University professor, argues looking at relative age will tell a different story.
“That is how a farmer has been aging relative to the US population. And it turns out that US farmers have been aging, less than half the general population. So, in a sense, they have been getting younger. The data that I’m using goes back to 1960,” says Zulauf. “I had to use median age for the US population because that’s what was reported. That increased by 8.8 years while the average age of US farmers has increased by 7.6 years.”
Zulauf points out that in the 2022 Census of Agriculture the number of farmers younger than 45 and older than 65 increased from the 2017 census.
