The 2022 Census of Agriculture shows the number of farmers over the age of 65 is outpacing younger farmers.
Almost 1.3 million farmers are now at or beyond retirement age, while just 300,000 farmers are under the age of 35. The average age of all producers was 58.1, up 0.6 years from 2017.
However, this is a smaller increase than average age increases between prior censuses. There were just over one million farmers with ten or fewer years of experience, an increase in the number of beginning farmers from 2017 of 11 percent. Beginning farmers are younger than all farmers, with an average age of 47.1. The number of producers under age 35 was 296,480, comprising nine percent of all producers.
In 2022, 1.2 million female producers accounted for 36 percent of all producers. And the data shows that 58 percent of all farms had at least one female decision maker.
