Illinois bucks aging farmer trend; McHenry County farms illustrate challenges

At 14, Renee Bauman of

[ Union ]

had established her own work routine on her family’s multi-generational dairy farm.

“Since then I’ve been milking every night by myself,” the now-18-year-old said. “After school, I come home, do night chores, the night milking, then do the barn chores – sweeping, feeding livestock, stuff like that.”

With a passion for such work ingrained in her since childhood, Bauman’s current post-high school plans involve a farm and industry short course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then a trip back home to work on her family’s farm.

If her future pans out the way she sees it, Renee will become part of a growing group of farmers younger than 34 throughout Illinois.

While the number of farmers younger than 34 has dropped slightly across the country, the number of young farmers statewide rose more than 7 percent from 4,696 in 2007 to 5,067 in 2012, according to figures provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Heather Obert, Renee’s adviser for Future Farmers of America at Marengo Community High School, said the statewide data seemed logical in some ways but surprising in others.

“It starts to makes sense when you think about seeing some of the older generation retire. ... And I think the new technology in agriculture tends to lend itself toward that younger generation,” said Obert, who also grew up on a family farm. “But the biggest challenge is going to be finances. If you didn’t have a tie into [farming] already, I don’t know how you’d get started.”

And the challenges young farmers face could be affecting older farmers, USDA spokeswoman Wendy Wasserman said. Farmers nationwide are older than they used to be – the average age is now 58 after increasing from 50 over the past 30 years. The latest census information for Illinois has the average age at 57 in 2007, up 17 percent over the last several decades.

Wasserman said the reasons farmers now continue to work for as long as they do are likely as varied as the farmers themselves. Part of it, she added, could be because of general demographic trends, while other reasoning could be linked to challenges such as retirement issues and succession planning.

“Having enough money for retirement for older farmers is a problem,” she wrote in an email. “Getting young farmers the financial infrastructure they need – including capital, income, security and financial planning – is also tricky.”

While Bauman’s family farm is held through a family trust, making the prospective transition a little easier, Obert said other farms might not have that option.

For 77-year-old Vern Schiller of McHenry, ending a 50-year tenure as a beef cattle farmer also meant the end of the farm he's managed for years. With four daughters scattered and married to men in nonfarming careers, Vern's wife, Jean Schiller, said there was never an intention to pass on management to someone else.

[ PHOTOS: Mr. Beef retires ]

“Unfortunately, age came up and bit me in the heinie, and I realized I wasn’t 24 or 30 anymore,” Schiller said, adding he decided to retire and shut down Shamrock Beef Cattle Farm in McHenry while he and his wife were still in good health.

Neither he nor the farm owner sought out successors to take it over.

“No one would’ve done that in their right mind,” Schiller said. “… If you have an operation and decide to go out of business and have an auction, the man coming in to take your place would have to have awfully deep pockets.”

He went on saying $1 million wouldn’t go very far for equipment alone, never mind buying farm land.

While federal programs and initiatives exist to help young farmers, inheriting equipment and land will definitely make things easier, Obert reiterated. Plus, she added growing up surrounded by farming can help prepare an up-and-comer for the extensive work associated with the industry.

“From a teacher’s perspective, those kids that have [farming] as their passion and it’s really in their hearts, we need them,” she said. “Those are the ones who have the interest and drive to go out, get the knowledge they need, and bring that back into their own communities.”

The idea sums up Bauman’s feelings pretty well.

“It sounds weird, but growing up, I was drawn to the cows,” Bauman said. “I work well with them, and it’s sort of what I gravitated to. ... As I got older, I knew I wanted to do this because there aren’t very many dairy farms around, and we need them.”