Family farmers look afield

Gary Fisher and his wife, Sharon, have barely earned a profit from their 2,500-acre corn-and-soybean farm for the past 20 years. For the past five years, they've lost money - and been kept afloat by government subsidies.

Despite the stress of a life where half their net worth is always at risk and the family's finances rest on the weight of a few paychecks, the Fishers are content. For them, farming has been an exercise of mind and body. The farm was the perfect place to raise children, they say, and lead self-sufficient lives.

It's the way of life they hoped to pass down to their offspring. But their children, like those of many other independent farmers here in northwest Iowa, and across the US corn belt, aren't interested.

Their son, Jim Fisher, had farmed full time for six years, and even bought 850 acres from his father. But Jim recently lost his heart for the work, and started a welding business in town.

"He became discouraged by the price of grain and the stress involved," says Mr. Fisher. "I told him to quit the farm and do what he likes to do."

Rather than sell to a multi-farm conglomerate, Fisher contacted Farm-On, an Iowa State University program that links young farmers looking for a start with older farmers nearing retirement.

Six months later, the Fishers have welcomed 26-year-old Ohio native Matthew Siefker into their family.

Their relationship is a test case in whether the independent American farm - an institution that long represented the bedrock of family tradition - will survive.

Like most modern grain farmers, Fisher is studying his computer screen when he isn't in the fields planting, cultivating, and harvesting. He searches radar weather reports for the answer to the question on every farmer's mind: When will the rain come?

This year, rain first came early, delaying the late-April planting season by a month. If rain comes in October, it might turn the harvest into a mudslide. But now, Fisher is praying for rain. Iowa has suffered through a minor drought this summer, and his crops need the nourishment.

Fisher also consults his computer for crop prices. He watches the numbers change daily, although he sells his crop and receives a check only a few times a year. The decision of when to sell is often based largely on intuition.

As a young man, the senior Fisher never doubted that he would take over his family's grain operation. "It was a natural instinct," he says.

Now, there is not much certainty in American agriculture.

The demise of the family farm was diagnosed in the 1980s, when land values sunk and smaller operations went bankrupt. Many of the independent farmers who hung on over the past 20 years are nearing retirement - the average age of Iowa farmers is 53.

Having battled through weather and finances throughout their careers, their current crisis is one of personnel.

An October 2000 study by Iowa State's Beginning Farmer Center shows that farmers are aging and don't have anyone to take over the farms.

The study's key findings:

• More than two-thirds of Iowa's farmland is owned by someone over 65.

• In 1982, 22 percent of farmers were under 35, and 12 percent were over 65. In 1997, however, only 10 percent were under 35 and 22 percent were over 65.

• Two-thirds of Iowa farmers say no one in the family will take over. And only 29 percent have identified a successor.

Mike Duffy, who heads the Farmer Center, credits the fuzzy retirement plans to the fact that farmers' lifestyles often overlap with their work.

These farmers want to retire, but very few want to change their way of life, he says.

In Fisher's case, a desire to perpetuate the farming lifestyle was what sent him searching for a protégé.

"Family farming is the way I grew up. It's a nice lifestyle," says Mr. Fisher. "I like to see independent farmers, not large corporations, operating farms."

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