Survey shows limited access to land for new farmers

A new survey of land ownership in the lower 48 states illustrates some of the difficulties would-be farmers face in acquiring farmland. The survey, by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), shows that about a tenth of the 911 million farmland acres outside of Alaska and Hawaii – about 91.5 million acres – is slated for ownership transfer in the next five years, not including farmland that is in or expected to be put into wills. Landlords expect to keep or put nearly 48 percent of these acres in trusts. Some 26 million acres are expected to be sold to a relative or given as a gift, and only 21 million acres are expected to be sold to a non-relative. This means that only a small percentage of farmland – just over 2 percent – will be available for new entrants into the farming sector. Read more at Agri-Pulse…