SW Ohio | Luke Beanwalker - 3/14/2026 21:04
East Central Ia location here, trying to gauge what the future of agriculture will look like in my county. I run in a pretty wide social circle, so I think I have a pretty good guess on the numbers, and when the baby boomers are gone in 20 yrs, there will only be 20-25 individuals/families actively farming in my county. Going through the data in the EWG subsidy database confirms this guess. That means there will only be 2000-2500 row crop farmers in Iowa by 2050. Are other counties in northern/central IA in a similar situation? Maybe places like Sioux county where there is more livestock will fare better? Seems like there may be opportunities for the kiddos who will come of age in the next decade or two.
As a guy going into his 5th year farming the opportunities for more ground are there, but not for people starting out. I know of roughly 250 acres that sold last fall and another 200 acres that changed hands due to retirement within 10 miles of me. The ground that sold went to non-farming landowners. All ground was rented to operations in the 2500+ acre range, and from what i've been told by the landowners i talked to was over $300/acre. I'm in southwest Ohio where 200bu corn and 60bu beans is an average year. Shift that to Iowa where you're probably expecting 250bu corn and 80bu beans and i'm sure the rent jumps up to accommodate that. No way somebody can start out and compete with that without some type of help or sweetheart deal, which is few and far between.
Honestly as a young guy the autonomous equipment worries me. Right now the limiting factor for most of these large operations is having enough butts to hold down a seat switch. Now you shift to where you only need 1 person to control a handful of tractors and i think farm size will be able to grow exponentially.
And then lets look at even thinking about purchasing ground. Have a family friend that bought 100 acres in the early 2000's when he was 20ish years old for $3k/acre, and was pretty much fully financed. Between farming and a decent town job it was paid off in less than 15 years, and has gone up 500% in value. Now look at financing $15k/acre ground and trying to pay for it farming and with a decent town job, and tell me how long it would take to pay off. By my math crop revenue would have a hard time paying the interest without even touching the principal. But i'm sure a boomer will be along to tell me to pull up my bootstraps and quit buying designer coffee and it'll be fine.
Edited by 977.3Ford 3/15/2026 08:48
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How many corn farmers will there be in Iowa in 25 yrs?
