Sabin Fellow Brooks Lamb: “Why the Kids Won’t Farm”

NY Times Op-ed highlights barriers to farming for today’s young Americans

Sabin Fellow Brooks Lamb, author and Special Advisor to the American Farmland Trust, published a powerful New York Times op-ed highlighting the barriers to farming facing young Americans and underscoring the significant risks that poses for our economy, our environment, our health, and our culture.

Lamb notes that a massive land transfer is imminent, as farmers and ranchers holding roughly 300 million acres of land are expected to retire or die in the coming decades. And while the remaining young Americans interested in farming struggle to purchase these lands at their skyrocketing prices, big agriculture, private investors, and real estate developers are only too ready to continue their land grab of small and midsize farms.

The consolidation of agricultural land ownership is harmful for the environment, our health, rural economies and food security. And so it would be better if young people took over the acreage about to change hands and kept small and midsize farms going.

It’s more than just the cost of the land — soaring prices for fertilizer and machinery, federal research funding cuts, and continued market disruptions, not to mention the cultural and economic drivers propelling youth away from rural communities, all threatened the future of American agriculture and the communities who have long been at the heart of it.

Of course, in true Brooks fashion, he also goes on to highlight a series of potential solutions to the challenges ahead. In addition to policy reform and investment at the state and federal levels, Brooks shares examples of the ways in which nonprofits can proactively support the next generation of farmers.

Hear more of Brooks’ insights in his NY Times op-ed as well as in his 2023 book, Love for the Land: Lessons from Farmers Who Persist in Place, and other books and essays.

And if you missed it, Brooks joined us at Wake Forest in November for our fall conference: Sustainable, Just, and Abundantly Wild. We encourage you to check out the Heirs Property panel he joined and other conference highlights.