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Braun says it’s time to secure America’s future in agriculture as workforce ages

A U.S. Senator from Indiana says preparing to transition farmland from one generation to the next is crucial to national security. Mike Braun is the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. “When you see the median age getting close to retirement, that’s not good,” he says.

He tells Brownfield one in three farmers plan to retire in the next decade and it’s expected that around 350 million acres of farmland will change hands. “We especially in high school, need to start doing what all other businesses and industries are doing,” he says. “They have apprenticeships, they have involvement with getting kids in high school that get them acclimated to what that might be as a career.”

In Braun’s recently released report, he outlines ways Congress and the administration can secure America’s future in agriculture. “See how we make it easier so that you get younger people in the business,” he says. “And that you take away all the things that might deter one from actually wanting to make a career in farming, and look at the entire gamut and see what can be done from a policy point of view.”

Braun says it’s also important to ensure America’s farmland isn’t sold to foreign adversaries.

AUDIO: Mike Braun, U.S. Senator from Indiana

Photo courtesy of Senator Braun.