Young Farmers Want Expanded Exports

March 20, 2000

A survey of 302 young farmers and ranchers, ages 18-35, from 47 states shows their main concerns are profitability and expanded exports. The survey was conducted by the American Farm Bureau Federation and is the eighth such AFBF survey.

More than a third of those surveyed, 36.1%, said overall profitability was their main concern compared with 32.4% last year and considerably more than the 18.6% in 1998. The cost of government regulations was second on the list of concerns, 13.6%, while the availability of land and other resources ranked third with 11.7%.

The fourth largest challenge this year was urban encroachment on farm land, selected by 9.1% of the respondents; 7.3% listed competition from larger farms and 7% listed tax burdens. Labor availability and related regulations was seventh at 5.1%.

For the third straight year, respondents said increasing U.S. agricultural exports was the most important step government could take to help them and their farms. At 38.4%, that response was a slight increase over last year.

A distant second, with 13.8%, was federal tax reform. Strengthening protection for property owners was third at 11.2%. Nearly two-thirds said once the current farm program expires, farm income should continue to be supplemented to some extent by the federal government (65.5%). Only 34.5% said farm income should come totally from the market. Two years ago 66.8% wanted a more open market over government support; last year, that response was about evenly split.

Internet access by young farmers and ranchers increased sharply in the most recent survey to 77.2%, up a full 25 percentage points from last year. Just four years ago, only 10.5% of young farmers reported having Internet access.

Computers are used on the farm by 90.7%, 11% more than last year. Cellular phone use increased to 87.4% this year, 4.6% more than in 1999, and more than a fourth reported making online purchases using e-commerce. The use of computer online services (42.7%), fax machines (51.3%), pagers (16.9 %) and home satellite dishes (36.1) were virtually unchanged from last year.

The number of young farmers planting biotech crops or who plan to do so within the next two years represented 59.3% of those responding, 2.1% more than last year and the highest number ever. The use of global positioning systems and global information services, where satellite technology is used to plot precise field activities, increased 8% from last year to 23.5%.