Farm Law and Ag Law Blog

‘This One Here Is Gonna Kick My Butt’—Farm Belt Bankruptcies Are Soaring Trade disputes over agriculture add pain to low commodity prices that have been grinding down American farmers for years Note:  This is an article that ran in the Wall Street Journal on February 7, 2019. I felt that it did a good job encompassing most of what farmers are dealing with...low prices, bankruptcies, depression, suicide, etc.   A wave of bankruptcies is sweeping the U.S. Farm Belt as trade disputes add pain to the low commodity prices that have been grinding down American farmers for years. Throughout much of the Midwest, U.S. farmers are filing for chapter 12 bankruptcy protection at levels not seen for at least a decade, a Wall Street Journal review of federal data shows. Bankruptcies in three regions covering major farm states last year rose to the highest level in at least 10 years. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, had double the bank

Will your farm be in the 97% club or the 3% club? One of the overriding goals that farmers have is that their farm operation continues on to a successor.  Then why is it so difficult to get farmers to put a succession plan in place?    A recent statistic stated that only 33% of all farms in this country will pass to the next generation.  That number does not seem shocking.  Of the farmers that are over 60 years old, representing the “current generation”, it is entirely plausible that only 1/3 of the farms transfer to the “next generation” (i.e. people aged 30-60) over the next 15-20 years when the current generation retires.                The same statistic source went on to say that of the 33% of farms that transfer to the “next generation” only 10% of those will pass to a third generation.   Whoa.   Let’s take a second and do some math.   We have roughly 2 million farms in this country.   If only 1/3 transfer to the “next generation”, then that means we drop to 660,