Shuffling across his frozen fields, farmer Jim Taphorn hunched his shoulders aga...
BEATTIE, KANSAS - Shuffling across his frozen fields, farmer Jim Taphorn hunched his shoulders against the wind and squinted at the auctioneer standing next to his tractors.After a fifth harvest with low grain prices, made worse last fall by the U.S.-China trade war, the 68-year-old and his family were calling it quits. Farming also was taking a physical toll on him, he said; he’d suffered a heart attack 15 months before.
Across the Midwest, growing numbers of grain farmers are choosing to shed their machinery and find renters for their land, all to stem the financial strain on their families, a dozen leading farm-equipment auction houses told Reuters. As these older grain farmers are retiring, fewer younger people are lining up to replace them.
By 2012, farm profits were flourishing as corn and soybean prices soared amid global demand and tight supplies. For the first time in decades, the number of producers aged 44 or younger in the Midwest grew. But the father of three couldn’t make it work. During the boom, Tom sought to expand by renting more land - but as grain prices fell, most landlords refused to lower their rates. It was beyond Tom’s reach, leaving him and his parents with too little land to till to cover two families’ expenses.
“Karen, it’s ok to shed a tear,” auctioneer Dan Sullivan said, as she pressed her face into her husband’s shoulder. “It’s the end of an era.”
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