Half of farmers are over retirement age. How many farms are there in Illinois?

More than 95% of farms in the United States are family-owned. Yet, the number of farms has steadily declined in recent years amid greater consolidation. In 2022, there were almost 2 million farms and ranches, down 6.9% from 2017, according to data from the Department of Agriculture’s census report.

The number of farms could fall further as farmers continue to age, and fewer young people take their place.

Illinois ranks #7 in the highest number of farms in the U.S.

According to the Illinois Farm Bureau, there are over 71,000 farms in the state, and roughly 96% of them are family-owned. Approximately 1/3 of its farms are livestock farms. Illinois ranked as the seventh highest state in the country in total number of farms. The state with the most farms is Texas.

A crisis 40 years in the making

The current dilemma facing the farming industry ties back to the 1980s farm crisis, when thousands of families lost their farms due, in part, to plummeting land values and overproduction. The economic downturn altered the way young people thought about farming.

At the time, parents “discouraged their children from returning to the land or pursuing careers in agriculture,” Aaron Locker, managing director of the agricultural recruitment firm Kincannon and Reed, told Congress during a June 4 hearing.

Enrollment in agriculture-based college programs dropped by nearly 37% between 1980 and 1990 and, in some regions, the share of students studying farming still remains small.

Young people who grew up in farming families are opting not to continue the businesses for a variety of reasons, from concerns about health care resources available in rural areas, to the financial burdens and uncertainty of farm work, said Megan Schossow, who works as a coordinator at the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center at the University of Minnesota.

People who want to open their own farms, but who don’t have family ties to the industry, also face enormous upfront challenges, including the costs of land and machinery.

“In the past institutional knowledge would've been shared from one generation to another,” Hlubik said. “Now we simply don't have as many people as we had that are actively farming. It's less than 1% of the population.”

Contributing: Linda Roy, Pontiac Daily Leader, Illinois

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Farmers are aging rapidly. How many farms are in Illinois?