Plan now for land transition

Iowa Farmer Today recently posted an article written by Steven Bohr about the dire need for producers to have a good plan in place for transition of their farmland.

In the article, Bohr provided more than a few frightening statistics about current land ownership and what it could mean for the future of agriculture. Among them were the following:

1) The age of the landowner is the oldest it has been in history. In 2007, people over the age of 55 owned 78 percent of the land in Iowa. Fifty-five percent is owned by people over the age of 65, compared with 29 percent in 1982.

2) In 2008, 73 percent of farms sold were purchased by existing land owners, 3 percent by new owners and 24 percent by off-farm investors.

3) The appraised value of the land is as high as it’s ever been in history.

Bohr urges producers to begin planning for their farm’s inevitable transition now to eliminate the uncertainty of the farm-continuation process.