AMES — Iowa farmers say their adult children who chose to farm did so because they love farming and the quality of life that it entails. But among farm children who selected other occupations, economic factors played a dominant role, according to data from the 2009 Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll.

“To farm or not to farm often isn’t an easy choice for the children of Iowa farmers,” said Iowa State University Extension Sociologist J. Gordon Arbuckle Jr., who co-directs the annual survey with ISU Extension Sociologist Paul Lasley.

“We asked farmers with adult children to share their thoughts about the factors that influenced their kids’ decisions to either become farmers themselves or to follow another career path,” Arbuckle said. “Farming is an economically challenging and often stressful occupation, and what we found was people don’t go into farming to make money, for the most part. Quality of life really figures strongly in decisions to farm.”

Many farm families have multiple children, Arbuckle noted, “and not all families have children who are interested in or able to enter farming. But we thought it fairly encouraging to find that at least 50 percent of farmers over age 55 – nearing retirement age — have adult children who farm.”

But that proportion represents barely half the number that would be needed to replace the current generation of farmers as they retire, the sociologist noted. “As the average age of Iowa farmers increases, it’s important that we understand more about how the children of farmers weigh their career options.”

Love of Farming Is Top Choice

Eighty percent of the farmers reported that love of farming was either important or very important in their children’s decisions to become farmers. Seventy-two percent gave high rankings to quality of life considerations and having grown up wanting to farm. Ability to be their own boss, desire to stay close to home, desire to carry on family tradition and family ability to help get them started also were rated as important or very important by a majority of Farm Poll participants.

Role of Economic Factors

“Farmers did not see economic factors as having played an important role in their children’s decisions to farm,” Arbuckle said. “In fact, ‘better income than other options’ was ranked dead last among factors that influenced their kids’ choice of farming as an occupation.”

When considering factors that figured into the career choices of children who did not go into farming, however, farmers indicated that economic factors played a major role. “The dominant reason, by far, was that other occupations provided better income. Seventy-five percent of farmers rated this reason as having been either important or very important in shaping their children’s decisions to go into a field other than farming,” Arbuckle said.

About 50 percent indicated that inability to afford equipment, land, livestock and other factors of production, as well as high land rents, influenced the decision not to farm. High risk and low farm profits also influenced their choice of another career.

Manual labor, rural isolation aren’t issues

Arbuckle took notice of two factors that didn’t appear to affect the decision not to farm.

“Conventional wisdom suggests that the amount of manual labor involved in farming combined with the perceived isolation of rural life discourage young people from entering farming. But Farm Poll data do not support that view,” Arbuckle said.

Sixty-two percent of farmers indicated that the labor demands of farming did not figure into their kids’ decisions not to farm, and 61 percent felt that disinterest in rural living was not an important consideration.

“Sometimes we don’t give the kids of today the credit they deserve. They’ll work hard at something they really love to do,” Arbuckle said.

“Farming is a tough business. It’s tough to get into — a lot of investments have to be made, in equipment, land and so forth. And it’s economically challenging. So it’s not surprising that those who end up choosing farming as a career are those who love to farm,” Arbuckle said.

“The kids who grew up wanting to farm, love farming, and really want to farm as a career, it seems to me, will do what it takes to reach that goal. But the barriers may be too high for some.”

About the Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll

More than 1,200 farmers participated in the 2009 Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll. On average, they were 64 years old and had been farming for 39 years. Copies of the 2009 summary report, PM 2093, and reports from previous years are available from the ISU Extension Online Store (www.extension.iastate.edu/store/) and Extension Sociology (www.soc.iastate.edu/extension/farmpoll.html).