Who (Actually) Gets the Farm? Intergenerational Farm Succession in the United States
AAEA members recent research published in AJAE
A recent study of 1.3 million farming families in the early 20th century finds that only one-fifth of farmers passed their farm to any of their children. The rate of completed succession is much lower than rates of planned succession found in previous studies, suggesting that there are substantial hurdles to the continuity of family farms.
In “Who (Actually) Gets the Farm? Intergenerational Farm Succession in the United States”, published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Adrian Haws and David Just from Cornell University and Joseph Price from Brigham Young University track farming families over 40 years to investigate the patterns of intergenerational farm succession in the United States.
The authors say, “We find that daughters were rarely successors in the early 20th century, implying that women faced limited opportunities for farm ownership.”
“The role of primogeniture in farm succession has been long debated. In the early 20th century US, we find that birth order played only a limited role”, they continued. “A more important factor than birth order is whether a son was a tenant farmer. Compared to their brothers, tenant farmers were much more likely to inherit the farm. This suggests that succession elevated the status of landless farmers, who gained the opportunity to apply their experience on land which they owned.”
“The Heirs’ Property Relending Program, which was signed into law as part of the 2018 Farm Bill, makes it clear that succession remains a core policy concern. There is an urgent need for further research to illuminate current succession patterns and possible barriers to farm succession. We echo a longstanding appeal for an improved agricultural data infrastructure that would enable these types of studies.”
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ABOUT AAEA: Established in 1910, the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) is the leading professional association for agricultural and applied economists, with 2,500 members in more than 60 countries. Members of the AAEA work in academic or government institutions as well as in industry and not-for-profit organizations, and engage in a variety of research, teaching, and outreach activities in the areas of agriculture, the environment, food, health, and international development. The AAEA publishes three journals, the Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (an open access journal), the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy, as well as the online magazine Choices and the online open access publication series Applied Economics Teaching Resources. To learn more, visit www.aaea.org.
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