Making Farming Financially Possible

UPDATE (Jan. 29): Kimberly Hart has proposed loan forgiveness for farmers as an Idea for Change.

Despite the revival of agricultural sentiment in the United States, it's still really hard to make it as a farmer. There's been an uptick in the number of young people who want to farm, but the number of them that actually manage to do it lags behind.

Young people used to do whatever they could to get off the family farm. And though the Atlantic's resident conservative, Caitlin Flanagan, hasn't moved beyond that view of success, many young people have. Plenty of smart, entrepreneurial college grads find farming rewarding and meaningful.

Or they would if they weren't too bogged down with student loans. Profit margins in farming are razor-thin — simply not forgiving enough for any significant debt beyond what you have to go into to buy equipment and seeds.

Kimberly Hart, blogging on Civil Eats, is calling for the federal government to extend the kind of loan repayment programs it offers to doctors serving under-served populations and others to new farmers.

Basically, those programs discharge all debt after 10 years of repayment and, in the meantime, put a cap on the percentage of your income you are expected to pay.

I'm a fan of these programs in general because they free people to do meaningful work instead of scrambling for a buck. And agriculture seems like a logical field in which to employ the incentive program.

My only question is: Should we limit the repayment plans to sustainable farmers?

Photo credit: meaduva