US wakes up to rural decline and ageing of farmers
Vilsack has his eye on an even bigger problem than income volatility, hence his unsympathetic approach to farmers feeling the impact of lower crop and livestock prices in their pockets.
He has warned America’s 51 million farmers, ranchers and rural residents that they were in danger of losing their voice in Washington, because the US Census Bureau figures show the rural population falling faster between 2010 and 2012.
The EU should sit up and take notice that even the $956 billion in spending over ten years authorised by the 2014 US Farm Bill can’t keep rural problems at bay.
Vilsack has had to remind farmers that if they want to find people who will buy their land and take over their operations, they need to highlight the positives associated with farming and rural life.
He said there is lots of competition for young people, and farmers could be their own worst enemy when it comes to marketing their occupation and lifestyle to the next generation.
Complaining about taxes, regulations and hard work isn’t the best marketing plan.
He downplayed the risks and hard work and said farming is the opportunity to be your own boss, to be an entrepreneur, to embrace innovation, feed the world, fuel American safety, and create options for consumers with inexpensive food.
Nevertheless, rural America is losing young people and suffering from a fall in birth rates.
For the first time, not enough rural babies are being born to offset emigration.
Rural America now has only 15% of the population.
In a pattern familiar to Irish and EU rural dwellers, declining populations leave less demand for businesses and teachers, and available services are run down, which deters families from moving back.
Tellingly, places like North Dakota and other states with access to oil and other energy sources, have had growth in population.
But agriculture isn’t pulling population; the farming population is ageing.
Farmers are getting older in Europe too.
New data from the Central Bureau of Statistics in the Netherlands offers an explanation — it shows that the income of the total economy grew four times more than that of the agricultural sector since 1995. And it isn’t getting any easier, with sustainability demands requiring farmers to produce more, with less water, energy and use of land.
