Next Gen Farmers Pt 1
I’m Bob Larson. Who will be the next generation of farmer?
As the average age of the American farmer gets older, it’s a question many are asking these days with many family farms hanging it up after generations.
Washington Policy Center Ag Director, and farmer herself, Pam Lewison says farming has to be in your blood …
LEWISON … “If you’re a farmer, you were born to be one. I genuinely believe that farming is something that calls to you and calls to your heart.”
But, Lewison says the attrition rate these days is staggering …
LEWISON … “You know, if you’re a farm kid and you grow up seeing how hard farming is and that you maybe don’t get to go on summer vacations like your friends and you don’t get to do certain things that maybe your friends from town get to do, it changes your perspective and you maybe decide that you don’t want that life, because it’s hard.”
Lewison says it’s one of the most challenging decisions the next gen farmer will have to make …
LEWISON … “You have to truly love farming and love your life as a farmer to want to keep doing it. And I think, particularly in the environment that we live in in Washington with the rules and regulations and how aggressively anti-agriculture we’re starting to become as a state.”
Tune in tomorrow for more on the next generation farmers and what they have to consider moving forward.
