[Senate Hearing 119-114]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 119-114
THE AGING FARM WORKFORCE:
AMERICA'S VANISHING FAMILY FARMS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
WASHINGTON, DC
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JUNE 4, 2025
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Serial No. 119-09
Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Aging
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
60-945 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
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SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING
RICK SCOTT, Florida, Chairman
DAVE McCORMICK, Pennsylvania KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
JIM JUSTICE, West Virginia ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama MARK KELLY, Arizona
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia
ASHLEY MOODY, Florida ANDY KIM, New Jersey
JON HUSTED, Ohio ANGELA ALSOBROOKS, Maryland
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McKinley Lewis, Majority Staff Director
Claire Descamps, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Opening Statement of Senator Rick Scott, Chairman................ 1
Opening Statement of Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Ranking
Member......................................................... 2
PANEL OF WITNESSES
Zippy Duvall, President, American Farm Bureau Federation,
Madison, GA.................................................... 4
Jim Alderman, Owner, Alderman Farms, Boynton Beach, FL........... 5
Aaron Locker, Managing Director, Kincannon & Reed, Lewes, DE..... 7
Chris Wolf, Ph.D., E.V. Baker Professor of Agricultural Economics
and Director of Land Grant Affairs, Cornell University, Ithaca,
NY............................................................. 9
APPENDIX
Prepared Witness Statements
Zippy Duvall, President, American Farm Bureau Federation,
Madison, GA.................................................... 32
Jim Alderman, Owner, Alderman Farms, Boynton Beach, FL........... 34
Aaron Locker, Managing Director, Kincannon & Reed, Lewes, DE..... 36
Chris Wolf, Ph.D., E.V. Baker Professor of Agricultural Economics
and Director of Land Grant Affairs, Cornell University, Ithaca,
NY............................................................. 38
Questions for the Record
Zippy Duvall, President, American Farm Bureau Federation,
Madison, GA.................................................... 43
Statements for the Record
BPR Lab Statement................................................ 47
THE AGING FARM WORKFORCE:
AMERICA'S VANISHING FAMILY FARMS
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Wednesday, June 4, 2025
U.S. Senate
Special Committee on Aging
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 4:15 p.m., Room
216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Rick Scott, Chairman of
the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Scott, Justice, Tuberville, Moody,
Gillibrand, and Warnock.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR
RICK SCOTT, CHAIRMAN
Chairman Scott. The U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging
will now come to order.
Today, we are gathered to discuss a very pressing issue,
not just for our aging community, but for our country. The U.S.
is the breadbasket of the world, thanks largely to family
farms. Unfortunately, the farming and agricultural workforce is
aging and nearing retirement, and fewer and fewer young people
are looking to take over their families' farms or enter the
agriculture industry.
With more farmers leaving the field and not having someone
to pass their land and legacy on to we face significant
challenges to agricultural production, rural community
sustainability, and U.S. food security.
Here is why this matters: U.S. food security is national
security.
American farmers are the Nation's oldest workforce,
averaging 58 years old. One-third of farmers and ranchers are
over the age of 65. In my home State of Florida, that number is
even higher, accounting for roughly 40 percent of all farmers.
This group of aging farmers owns over 40 percent of U.S.
farmland, and with more farmers retiring and fewer children
looking to take over farms for their families, these farms and
their legacies are at risk.
The U.S. has lost more than 200,000 farms since 2007. That
is 40 million acres of land being repurposed for commercial,
residential, industrial development, and 40 million acres of
land that are no longer producing food and agricultural
products in the United States.
There are many factors that contribute to this loss. Most
farmers are not looking to sell land to a developer. They
prefer to keep their family farm functional and to pass their
hard-tilled land on to someone who can continue their legacy
and service to the community.
More and more young people are turning away from their jobs
in farming and agriculture, due largely to the increased cost
of farming, which is especially difficult for small farmers and
those just starting out. This next generation of farmers are
facing increased regulatory burdens and operating costs. The
national price for farmland has increased over seven percent in
three years, averaging $4,000 an acre. Over 80 percent of
farmers work a second job.
Farmers face many challenges, from natural disasters to
inflation. Rising input costs, especially high energy costs,
make continuing in the family business less attractive to
younger generations. This is also true when accounting for
death, property, and inheritance taxes that can make taking
over a family farm overwhelming.
New farmers face even steeper obstacles, including access
to land. As older farmers retire, foreign and adversarial
entities, like Communist China, look to gain a stronger toehold
in the U.S. agricultural sector by buying their land. At this
point, China owns more than 350,000 acres of farmland across 27
states. That is not an acceptable threat. American farmers also
must deal with unfair trade practices undercutting their
product on an international level.
Congress has not always done right by our farmers. The
major legislative package aimed at supporting farmers and
agricultural workers--the farm bill--has not passed since 2018.
This is especially harmful for farmers who have suffered with
rising prices for the last four years under the last
administration.
While President Trump is having success in bringing down
prices and fighting to support American farmers, he needs
Congress to act as well, and passing a good farm bill is the
right place to start. Otherwise, we will continue to use
outdated information which compounds the harm done by other
economic and regulatory factors. As a result, the burden
increases on our aging farmers who want nothing more than to
see their farm continue in trustworthy hands but are finding it
harder and harder to find someone to carry on their legacy.
The aging farm workforce and the loss of family farms
presents a critical challenge to the sustainability of American
agriculture. During this hearing, I hope to hear from our
witnesses how we can better protect the heritage of our aging
farmers and better secure the handover of farms to the next
generation. We owe it to our retiring farm workforce to ensure
their legacy can be continued, while ensuring our food supply
and shoring up the security of our Nation.
Now I would like to recognize Ranking Member Gillibrand for
her opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, RANKING MEMBER
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we all
know, our farm workforce is aging. On average, our Nation's
farmers are older now than they were when the last census of
agriculture was conducted in 2017.
Because of financial stress, many farmers who would
otherwise retire have had to keep on working. Some farmers have
faced pressure to sell their farms to other owners if their
family does not want to continue operations. Meanwhile, a lack
of training and rural amenities, like broadband and childcare,
have made farming less appealing to younger families.
Our farmers provide an accessible and abundant supply of
food to our whole nation, but with increased consolidation and
more farmlands being converted to non-agriculture uses, we are
sending ourselves down a very risky path.
Our duty in Congress should be to support our farmers
whatever way we can. With a changing climate, rising prices,
volatile markets, our farmers are facing many challenges that
make success even harder.
One of the most important things we can do is to pass a
robust and bipartisan farm bill that addresses the needs of the
agricultural community as well as nutrition and conservation
needs. To encourage the younger generation to return to farming
we must invest in our rural communities. New and beginning
farmers and young people who are returning to their family farm
do not only consider the income that is tied to farming. They
need to be able to access broadband and childcare and health
care. We need to make sure that there is enough mental health
support at times when we see more farmers dying by succumbing
to suicide.
I have to say that the anxiety and stress caused by the
fluctuating tariffs that we are currently seeing has not
helped. Our farmers need consistent policy to make long-term
planting and investment decisions. They need reliability from
Congress in an unpredictable profession. Approximately 20
percent of our agriculture is exported, and farmers rely on
those markets to make a profit.
I look forward to a positive and productive conversation
today to discuss ways we can support our aging farmers, while
making sure new and beginning farmers continue to enter the
farm workforce.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Scott. Thank you, Ranking Member Gillibrand.
I now would like to welcome our witnesses here today, all
of whom bring important perspectives on the challenges facing
the aging workforce that we see in American agriculture.
First, I am proud to welcome someone who has spent his life
fighting for our farmers, Mr. Zippy Duvall, President of the
American Farm Bureau Federation. Mr. Duvall is not only a
national leader in agriculture, he is also a third-generation
farmer from Georgia who understands firsthand the pressures our
family farms are facing. He knows what it means to work the
land, raise a family in agriculture, and build something to
pass on to the next generation.
Mr. Duvall, thank you for being here. Thank you for your
service to our Nation's farmers and ranchers. You may begin
your testimony.
STATEMENT OF ZIPPY DUVALL, PRESIDENT,
AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION, MADISON, GA
Mr. Duvall. Thank you, Chairman Scott, and thank you,
Ranking Member Gillibrand. We appreciate the opportunity to be
able to testify here today in front of you and your Committee.
I am Zippy Duvall, and I am a third-generation Georgia
farmer, and I am president of the American Farm Bureau, who
represents farm families from all 50 states and Puerto Rico. I
am fortunate to follow in my father and grandfather in their
footsteps on our family farm. Today, my son, who is a
veterinarian to help support his habit of farming, we operate a
beef cow farm, we raise broilers there on our farm, and we also
have spent our lifetime restoring the land that has been in our
family for over 90 years.
As I travel the country and see farms across our great
country I see a lot of gray hair, and while the wisdom of older
generations is critical, we must ensure that we make a way for
young and beginning farmers to fill our boots.
As this Committee has identified, there are many challenges
facing the agriculture communities, but there are also
opportunities for Congress to support young and beginning
farmers, including and starting with a new farm bill. As I
shared with the Senate Agriculture Committee earlier this year,
we need a modernized, 5-year farm bill. Farmers and ranchers
have faced unprecedented volatility since the 2018 Farm Bill
was put into place, making it harder for many of our farmers to
hold on. The 2022 census showed the loss of over 141,000 farms
in five years. That is an average of 77 farms per day that we
have lost.
With rising interest rates, higher energy prices, supply
costs that have gone unchecked, farmers will plant the most
expensive crops ever planted this year, and many have faced a
tough decision of whether or not to even plant that crop.
This is why the farm bill and Title I safety net is so
critical.
Despite skyrocketing costs, the 2024 payments to farmers
are projected to be the lowest since 1982.
Additionally, farm debt is expected to increase in 2025, to
more than $560 billion.
Our members support streamlining farm loan programs to meet
the evolving needs of farmers and ranchers and to make
agriculture more accessible to young and beginning farmers.
We are proud of Secretary Rollins for establishing a Small
Family Farms Policy Agenda. It highlights the need to reform
loan programs, to streamline the delivery and increase the
program efficiency.
Adding to the uncertainty that farmers and ranchers and
many other small businesses are facing is the possibility of
the largest tax increase in American history. One provision
that is critical to keeping family farms going to the next
generation is the increase of estate tax exemption. If the
exemption level reverts backward, many families will risk
losing their farm. Farm Bureau was pleased to see the progress
made with the House passage of the reconciliation package, and
we urge the Senate to join to ensure America's farmers and
ranchers can continue to provide the food, fuel, and fiber that
our country needs.
Of course, we cannot paint the full picture on this issue
without talking about our employees. Many of those employees
are like family to us, and they are aging right alongside of
us. That is a problem, because most Americans, they are not
interested in working on our farms anymore, and they are not
interested in coming back to the farm, despite the big
investments that we are making in recruiting people to come
back to the farm.
Congress needs to recognize that farm workers as an
essential to feeding and fueling our country. It is time to
modernize our outdated system, and only Congress can
meaningfully do that.
A country that cannot feed its people is not a secure
country. In order to meet the growing demand of food, fiber,
and renewable fuel at home and abroad, we must ensure the
continued strength of our farmers and ranchers in our
communities.
I want to thank the Chairman for holding this hearing
today, and I look forward to working with you to support the
next generation of farmers, and I would be happy to answer any
questions the Committee might have.
Chairman Scott. Thank you, Mr. Duvall.
Next, we are pleased to welcome Jim Alderman, owner of
Alderman Farms in Palm Beach County, Florida. Mr. Alderman has
been farming since 1979, growing a wide variety of organic
vegetables to managing a cow camp operation. He was recently
named the 2025 Florida Farm Bureau Farmer of the Year, a well-
deserved honor that reflects his decades of dedication to
agriculture. He has also been a strong advocate for Florida
farmers, speaking out on key issues like trade and labor, and
serving on multiple advisory committees to help shape
agriculture policy.
Mr. Alderman, thank you for being here today. You may begin
your testimony.
STATEMENT OF JIM ALDERMAN, OWNER,
ALDERMAN FARMS, BOYNTON BEACH, FL
Mr. Alderman. Again, my name is Jim Alderman and I began
Alderman Farms in 1979. We farm about 1,200 acres in eastern
Palm Beach County. We are a very diversified farming
operation----
Chairman Scott. Mr. Alderman, can you turn your mic on?
Mr. Alderman. Sorry. It is on. Do you want me to start
over, or where am I at?
Okay. Again, my name is Jim Alderman. I began farming
Alderman Farms in 1979. We farm approximately 1,200 acres in
eastern Palm Beach County. We are a diversified farming
operation, growing mixed organic vegetables, and particularly
vine-ripe tomatoes. We grow the finest vine-ripe tomato in this
country. Trust me.
South Florida has a very unique climate, which allows us to
produce vegetables during the winter months, but it also brings
unique challenges--hurricanes, invasive pests, development
pressure, and rising input cost. You learn to adapt, and you
also learn that it is not a sprint. It is a lifelong
commitment.
At the age of 78 years old, I have spent almost four and a
half decades working the land. I still wake up before sunrise
most days, like my peers. I am still going strong because there
is more work to be done. According to the Committee's report,
the average farmer is now 58 years old. In Florida, nearly 40
percent of our producers are 65 or older. We are proud of our
experience and knowledge, but the question I ask is who is
coming behind us? That is the part that keeps me up at night.
It is just not growing crops. It is passing down the knowledge
discipline in our way of life, but that chain of succession is
breaking. Nationwide, less than nine percent of the farmers are
under 35 years of age, and then the numbers are even more
sobering in states like mine. Young people want to farm but
they are running into walls, such as expensive land costs,
expensive equipment costs, and the cost of financing is very
difficult.
The big question is why are farmers selling out, without
young men and women stepping in. The incentive to make a profit
is not there. We may ask why can't they make a profit. The
first reason that comes to me is that the imports are being
shipped into this country below our production costs. If a
farmer cannot make money, he is not going to expand his
operation. If he has the opportunity to sell land, which was
farmed for years, comes, sometimes the opportunity is too
great. They sell, retire, and then development comes, parking
lots, residential communities, and no agriculture.
How can we help farmers make it so we can be competitive
with our neighbors to the north and our south? We have to be on
the same level playing field.
Another problem farmers have is the invasion of invasive
insects and diseases that have entered our country from other
countries. For example, we have seen the citrus industry, with
citrus greening, has devastated the citrus industry. We have
gone from 240 million boxes of oranges in production to around
40 million boxes today, all because of an insect that came in
with bacteria that causes citrus greening. I think that it
would help our country if we had better inspections at our
ports of entry to combat invasion of insects and diseases that
come from other countries.
One of the other problems we have is that we are being
over-regulated. Food safety is of primary concern for Alderman
Farms. We are very careful to make sure that we have the safest
produce coming from our farms. Presently, we have several food
safety inspections. It would be great if we could only have one
that serves all the different inspections that are required.
Again, farmers must make a profit. They must make money to
continue their operation or they will take the easy way out,
sell their property, and retire. Free and equal trade between
our neighboring countries is a must, and as you know, labor is
a major problem in agriculture. We are now depending on H-2A
labor from Mexico, because we cannot get enough domestic labor
to harvest our crops. Agricultural labor reform is a must.
If we want to sustain agriculture in America, we need to
smooth the path between the generations, which means investing
in beginning farmer programs, expanding technical assistance,
and offering incentives like estate planning support, and make
it easier to transfer farms without losing the land or the
legacy. These are not just policy tweaks. They are steps in our
food system to prevent eroding one generation at a time.
I come before you today not just as a farm but someone who
cares deeply about the future of our country's food supply. We
need strong, bipartisan action to support aging farmers invest
in new generations, and keep American agriculture alive and
well for decades to come.
Thank you for recognizing the urgency of this problem and
thank you for allowing farmers like me to have a voice.
Chairman Scott. Thank you, Mr. Alderman.
Mr. Alderman. I will be glad to take any questions at any
time, from anybody.
Chairman Scott. Perfect. Our next witness brings a critical
perspective from the private sector, someone who has spent his
career helping agricultural businesses find the talent and
leadership they need to succeed. Mr. Aaron Locker is Managing
Director at Kincannon & Reed, the largest executive search firm
in the world focused exclusively on food and agriculture. He
also knows this issue personally. He grew up on a small family
farm in Ohio, and he spent more than three decades working
across the Ag industry.
Thank you for being here. We appreciate your work, and we
look forward to hearing your insights.
STATEMENT OF AARON LOCKER, MANAGING
DIRECTOR, KINCANNON & REED, LEWES, DE
Mr. Locker. Good afternoon, Chairman Scott, Ranking Member
Gillibrand, and members of the Committee. Thanks for the
opportunity to testify before you today. As Chairman Scott
pointed out, my name is Aaron Locker, and I grew up on a small
farm in Ohio, and spent the last 36 years working in
agriculture, from food production to executive leadership.
Today I serve as Managing Director at Kincannon & Reed. We
are the largest executive search firm focused exclusively on
identifying and recruiting leadership for organizations across
the food and agriculture industries, the organizations that
feed the world.
For more than 40 years, we have helped Ag organizations
find and develop talent, and right now that leadership pipeline
is under serious strain.
In 2025, more people will turn 65 than in any year in
history. For every potential leader aged 35 to 50, two are
preparing to retire. In agriculture, where many senior leaders
have been in place for decades, this creates an acute
succession challenge, and the next generation of leaders,
especially those with agricultural backgrounds, is smaller than
ever.
This is not a coincidence. The 1980's farm crisis did not
just hurt balance sheets. It changed the interest in being
involved in agriculture. The farm crisis did not just hurt
those in production, but the ripple effect was across the
industry. Between 1980 and 1990, while college enrollment went
up seven percent nationwide, enrollment in land-grant
university colleges of agriculture, like Texas A&M, Nebraska,
Minnesota, Penn State, and Iowa State, to name a few, dropped
by nearly 37 percent. That gap is being realized today, in
boardrooms, field offices, and agronomy teams.
Meanwhile, the complexity of agriculture is growing.
Precision and decision Ag technologies, automation, AI on the
farm, and sustainability initiatives, they are moving fast, but
fewer than one-third of Ag companies that we work with have
formal succession plans. That is not just a statistic--that is
systemic risk.
Job growth in agriculture is steady, around three percent
per year, but tech and finance are growing three times faster,
so we are not just competing for talent. We are competing for
leadership, and that matters, because as you mentioned,
Chairman Scott, food security is national security.
Attracting and retaining the next generation also depends
on profitability and predictability. When farmers and
agribusinesses face constant regulatory uncertainty, and rising
compliance costs, it discourages investment and makes
leadership succession harder. To keep agriculture strong, we
must reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens and ensure producers
and those across the industry see a future worth building
toward.
This is not a challenge the private agribusiness sector can
solve alone. Congress does have a vital role to play, and I
respectfully offer four recommendations.
First, pass a strong, fully funded farm bill. It provides
stability for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities.
Second, promote agriculture as a mission-driven, modern
career path. No other sector blends health, nutrition, energy,
and technology like agriculture. We have built the safest, most
abundant food supply in the world, but that system will not
sustain itself without the people who lead it. Young people and
career changers need to see agriculture as a place to lead and
innovative.
Third, invest in leadership development. Support USDA
scholarships, executive fellowships, and training through land-
grant universities and Ag nonprofits.
Fourth, strengthen rural workforce development. That means
apprenticeships, veteran transitions, and community college Ag
programs, and it means building career paths from urban and
suburban areas into agriculture.
In closing, the food and agriculture industries are
evolving fast, but our leadership pipeline is not keeping up.
This is not just a workforce issue. It is a threat to our most
essential system, our food supply.
If we want a strong, sustainable agricultural future we
must invest in people. We just identify and support leaders
early, and we must give them room to grow.
Thank you for your time and for your focus on this issue,
and I, too, look forward to any questions that you may have.
Chairman Scott. Thank you, Mr. Locker.
Now I would like to recognize Ranking Member Gillibrand to
introduce her witness.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Chairman Scott. I would like
to introduce Dr. Chris Wolf. Dr. Wolf is the E.V. Baker
Professor of Agricultural Economics at Cornell University's
Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management,
and the Director of Land Grant Affairs.
Dr. Wolf conducts research, extension, and teaching
focusing on dairy products and policy, business management,
risk management, and farm animal welfare. He also works with
farmers to conduct research in order to identify how public
policy impacts farm behavior and financial outcomes with the
intent of improving decisionmaking for policymakers and
industry professionals.
You may begin.
STATEMENT OF CHRIS WOLF, PH.D., E.V. BAKER
PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS AND
DIRECTOR OF LAND GRANT AFFAIRS,
CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, NY
Dr. Wolf. Thank you. Chairman Scott, Ranking Member
Gillibrand, and members of the Committee, thank you for
inviting me to be part of this hearing. As Senator Gillibrand
said, I currently serve as the E.V. Baker Professor of
Agricultural Economics at Cornell University, where I am
jointly in the SC Johnson College of Business and the College
of Agriculture and Life Sciences. I have a three-way split in
research, extension, and teaching. I have been at Cornell since
2019, and mostly I do work on dairy policy and farm business
management. I have taught farm business management and Ag
finance for the last 25 years at the universities. I also serve
as the Faculty Director of the New York FarmNet program.
In my home State of New York, which is currently the fifth-
largest producer of milk, we are in the midst of $2.5 billion
in new, private sector investment in dairy manufacturing. To
enable this growth, Cornell is focused on helping to ensure our
family farms thrive, bringing the next generation back to the
farm, increasing production in a sustainable way, and training
both college-bound and non-college-bound students for dairy
careers.
There are a number of explanations for the increased U.S.
farm age. One is that there is a larger share of commercial
farms that are multigenerational in nature. Rather than the
kids operating separate farms, like they would have done maybe
when I was thinking about going back to the farm, they return
to the operation and become owners, which enables economies in
size and production and management. In this case, the
management team might have a younger average age that is masked
by considering only the primary operator.
Modern agricultural production also tends to be quite
capital intensive, and that capital accumulation occurs over
the manager's lifetime, the result being that the average farm
age is getting older.
Finally, given the USDA definition of the farm as "any
place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were
produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the
year," there are a large percentage of farms which are operated
as part-time businesses, and there is nothing wrong with that,
but this also means that if someone retires to some rural
acreage they will be included as a farm and increase the farm
age.
This is not meant to imply that there are no issues with
farm viability related to increasing farmer age. These include
hurdles that limit the entry of young people into farming and
the need to facilitate the transfer of assets to the next
generation while providing the resources necessary for the
retirement of the older generation. Family-owned farms, which
are 96 percent of U.S. farms, are closely held businesses. The
farms tend to be of the size that meets the management
constraints and the income needs of the family owner-operators.
Because of the capital requirements, farm business assets are
often the retirement plan for farmers. While these farmers hope
to pass the business to the next generation, they also need to
recover the equity value to fund their retirement.
Attracting the next generation of farm business owner-
managers means making the profession attractive in terms of
income and rural amenities. Significant impediments to
successful intergenerational transfer often relate to
information gaps, and this is where land-grant extension
programs can be a valuable partner.
New York FarmNet is a program that was created in 1986, in
response to the farm financial crisis. The programs operate a
tollfree number that responds to requests with a team of
financial and mental health professionals to meet with farm
families at no cost. Including mental health professionals was
motivated by the alarming fact that farmers face much higher
rates of depression and suicide than the general population.
FarmNet receives about 700 calls a year, resulting in about
400 new cases being opened. The remaining calls are referred to
technical, accounting, or legal assistance. Sources of
financial stress that FarmNet sees include price uncertainty,
labor cost and availability, capital costs, land access, and
estate and succession planning. Family related stressors
include health issues, childcare, eldercare, and drug and
alcohol abuse.
Agriculture ranks among the most dangerous industries in
the U.S. with machinery accidents and injuries being common.
Health care issues include not just the cost but also the
availability and proximity. Farmers often report delaying or
avoid health care due to cost, distance, and time constraints.
Many farmers are underinsured or uninsured, especially those
who are self-employed and operator small family farms.
Farm business succession is a major source of financial and
family related stress on farms. FarmNet and Cornell Cooperative
Extension and land-grants across the country offer educational
workshops and materials on farm business succession and estate
transfer. In 2024, FarmNet assisted farm businesses that
represented over $13 million in revenue, 600 employees, keeping
more than 180,000 acres active in farming. FarmNet's experience
is that managers who participate in these programs for estate
planning and farm business transfer are likely to engage with
attorneys and accountants to complete successful
intergenerational transfer.
Applied research and extension land-grant programs like
FarmNet can provide valuable assistance to help ensure
successful farm business transitions and a healthy U.S.
agricultural sector. Thank you.
Chairman Scott. Thank you, Dr. Wolf. Now we will open it up
for questions. Senator Tuberville.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having and
holding this hearing. In addition to being on the Aging
Committee, gentleman, I am also on the Ag Committee. Let me
tell you, the state of agriculture economy, is in dire straits.
We are in trouble. We have lost 150,000 farms, 25,000 farmers
just in the last five years. Producers have lost over $40
billion in net farm income since 2022, and the current
agriculture trade deficit has grown to $49 billion. Despite my
State of Alabama, producers making bumper crops, they cannot
even break even, much less make a profit, due to the low
commodity prices, high input costs, interest rates, and
inflation. We cannot keep this up. We cannot do it.
The only way we are going to help our farmers survive is to
extend President Trump's tax cuts, increase reference prices,
and hammer the heck out of foreign countries on tariffs. It is
way out of control, way out of balance. We cannot continue this
direction.
It is concerning that one-third of our farmers are over age
65, and this creates a significant workforce problem for our Ag
industry, as young people are not entering farming. Mr. Duvall
and Mr. Alderman, this labor problem increases the need for
reforms in H-2A programs. Can you two speak of the struggles of
keeping up with H-2A's adverse effect wage rate that is over
$16 an hour, in my State of Alabama, that is double the minimum
wage. Can you all address that, please?
Mr. Alderman. Yes, sir, I can.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you.
Mr. Alderman. It costs me an hour for my H-2A labor.
Minimum wage in Florida, I think, is $12.50. I am from Florida,
and with the rates going up higher next year--they are talking
about it going up another dollar--we still have to pay for
their housing. We would like some relief at least so we could
get the housing back from the people, the H-2A workers we are
bringing in, but we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars
every year just for housing for the labor, plus we have to
bring them in here, pay for their visas, pay for their ride
here, their ride back. They are great labor. They are good.
Without them we could not harvest our crop.
We cannot compete with the cheap prices of tomatoes coming
from Mexico against us. They are undercutting the price so
cheap, the tariff that we are talking about is not enough to
make any difference. Twenty percent, 17 percent, that is not
enough to help it. They need a floor, at least what our minimum
growing cost is, and then put a tariff above that, but try to
protect the Florida farmers, the few that are left.
It is not only just in Florida. At first it was just Mexico
was coming after Florida tomato farmers right after NAFTA.
Well, 20 years later they are growing pepper and squash and
corn and beans, and every vegetable we grow, all the way up the
East Coast, all the way to Jersey and past, they are going to
be competing with all of them, Mexico, with all those products,
and their labor is--I don't know, what are they paying, $10 a
day, and we are paying $25 an hour? There has got to be some
help with the balance of trade.
We do not want the government to give us anything, but get
us on a level playing field with Mexico and Canada.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you. Mr. Duvall, do you want to
add to that?
Mr. Duvall. Yes, sir. The first thing we need to do is for
Congress to freeze the AEWR wage rate so that farmers do not
have to take another increase and give us time to work on this
H-2A program so that we can make it a workable program for our
employees and for the farmer there. The way we are going now,
with the wage rate going up, we are going to price ourselves
out of farming. We are not going to be able to pay the wage
rate and stay in farming and provide those jobs, and it has got
to be done, and it has got to be done quickly.
Then we have got to work on creating an H-2A program, or a
program, that speaks to all of agriculture. All of agriculture
is suffering for the lack of labor, and we need to have year-
round workers, that is not capped. We need to be able to
control it, but we need to be able to fill those jobs, whether
a small, medium, or large-sized farm, and we need to have those
year-round workers in those areas, like dairy and other places
where the work never stops.
Then, of course, the regulation to go along with those
programs are just so burdensome. You heard him talk about the
requirement of having housing, the liabilities that come along
with that, and the difficulty it is for our farmers to continue
to abide by all these regulations. Because every regulation
costs a lot of money to a farmer, and if we are going to
continue to be able to compete with the world, we have got to
be able to make sure that we have a workable program, bring
reliable labor here, so that we can get the job done.
How can a young farmer come back to the farm and bring his
expertise that he learned in college, expand that farm without
having a labor force to do it with? That is one of the biggest
limiting factors we have, and that AEWR rate is set by a survey
done through USDA that was created over 60 years ago to count
employees, not to set a wage rate. The formula is totally
unworkable, and we need to redo that formula and set a fair
wage rate that encourages farmers to hire people and be able to
still stay in business, and treat those employees right.
Chairman Scott. Thank you, Senator Tuberville. Ranking
Member Gillibrand.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Wolf, we
have seen several different tariff levels imposed on various
countries, at various points, on different goods in the last
several months. This has impacted everything from feed costs,
fertilizer, and machinery, increasing operation costs for a lot
of our farmers who already work within very tight financial
margins.
In the north country of New York State, many dairy farmers
depend on Canadian feed and fertilizer for their operations.
This has been a long-term and mutually beneficial relationship
that we have had with Canada, and it has benefited businesses
on both sides of the border.
Dr. Wolf, in your opinion, what possible outcomes can we
expect to see if the United States continues to impose these
tariffs, which may lead to both higher input prices and
restricted access to export markets due to retaliatory tariffs?
Dr. Wolf. Senator Gillibrand, U.S. agriculture is dependent
on trade, both for many inputs as well as for export markets
for their outputs, so increasing tariffs and trade wars is
certainly not something that are going to benefit U.S. farmers.
For example, farms are dependent on inputs from Canada for
things like fertilizer, lumber, and metal, so maintaining that
relationship is better for the farmers, definitely there.
The U.S. dairy industry, which is what I mostly work with,
on average exports about one day a week of the milk production,
and the most important outlets for U.S. dairy exports are
Mexico, Canada, and China, so maintaining that relationship is
critical for U.S. dairy. Without these exports, stocks would
surge and milk prices would be depressed, and that would lead
to more farm exits.
U.S. dairy farms are efficient, and they can compete with
anybody in the global market, and I think that is what they
want to do, but we have got to be perceived as a reliable trade
partner, and that same statement could be made for a whole
bunch of different U.S. commodities, from beef and pork to corn
and soybeans.
In a broader sense, the uncertainty in the last few months,
uncertainty tends to inhibit investment. When the outcomes and
the probabilities of the outcomes are uncertain, that basically
creates a positive option value to waiting on investment, which
is what we are seeing in the last few months a little bit, so
we are waiting on investments at a lot of different levels, and
removing that uncertainty, I think, would help make U.S.
agriculture a better, longer term investment and encourage
investment in that sense.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Dr. Wolf. Farming is one of
the most stressful occupations due to its unpredictability of
climate, market prices, and labor shortages. The rate of
suicide among farmers is two to five times higher than the
national average, and approximately 60 percent of rural
Americans live in a designated mental health provider shortage
area.
I was proud to introduce the National Agriculture Crisis
Hotline Act last Congress to establish a National Agricultural
Crisis Hotline while expanding and supporting the current work
undertaken by the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network.
Programs like the ones at Cornell, New York FarmNet, and the
American Farm Bureau Federation's Farm State of Mind program
are both critical to resources to support our farmers in
moments of crisis.
President Duvall and Dr. Wolf, how should Congress expand
resources to help our farmers access the mental health
assistance that they need, and how can we reduce the stigma
surrounding mental health in the agriculture community to
encourage our farmers and ranchers to reach out when they are
in need, before they are in a moment of crisis? Mr. Duvall?
Dr. Duvall. Yes, ma'am. I take that very seriously because
I remember when I was in dairy, when I was back on the farm,
before I got this job, and dairying every day, I lost my wife
of 42 years, my son went to war in Iraq, and with all the
pressures of the farm I realized what those pressures do to a
man, and us old farmers, we are kind of crusty. We sit in a
back room and think we are not supposed to talk about our
feelings, but that is the worst thing we can do. The stigma
that goes along with it, the embarrassment that people think
they experience is not really there, and really and truly, all
they need to do is open up and talk. It is okay not to be okay,
but it is not okay not to talk about it.
That is why we went and started our Farm State of Mind
program, and we also joined up with Together All, which puts us
in with a peer-to-peer group that farmers can be talking to
each other, and free counseling for farmers and ranchers all
over the country, to be able to be part of.
To support what you brought up, Georgia Farm Bureau and
Georgia Foundation for Agriculture and Georgia Rural Health did
a study, and it was very sobering the fact that 29 percent
reported thinking about dying of suicide, of Georgia farmers,
and when you look at the younger generation, first-generation
farmers, 49 percent of those first-generation farmers had
thought about dying of suicide at least once a month. Those are
devastating, devastating figures.
We have got to continue to work with Congress to make sure
that we tear down these barriers that causes higher regulation,
that causes pressure for farmers, find an answer to our labor
problems that is workable for our farmers, and be able to work
with them with an undocumented workforce. We, in agriculture,
know that about 50 percent of the workers out there on the farm
are undocumented, and those people are like family to these
farmers, and we need a way to work through that situation that
a broken system has created here in this country.
There are a lot of things that Congress can do, but being
able to put them on a level playing field and trade, tear down
regulation, help them find a workable workforce would go a long
way to taking a lot of pressure off.
Senator Gillibrand. Dr. Wolf, do you want to answer?
Dr. Wolf. Sure, thanks. A couple of different things I
would point out. One is that the big part of it, as Mr. Duvall
mentioned, is overcoming the stigma, and I think that education
and awareness can go a long way toward overcoming the stigma,
so maybe a series of public service announcements
collaboratively with groups like maybe American Farm Bureau and
other commodity groups could help provide more awareness, and
then accessibility. As you mentioned, a tollfree number that
they can call, with trained counselors and resources, would
have a positive impact, and also given the distance that many
have living in remote areas, having telemedicine in addition to
the tollfree number, with again, counselors and resources that
understand what is going on in these rural areas and with
farmers would be very valuable.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Scott. Senator Justice.
Senator Justice. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much, and
Ranking Member, thank you. I thank all you great Senators, and
especially Senator Tuberville. You know, he and I are buddies,
and we both are on the Ag Committee, and I want you to pay as
close attention to me as you possibly can.
Our family has been in the farming business for a long,
long, long time. We have got a real, real, real problem in
agriculture, a real problem, and it is so serious, it is off
the chart. You know, just think about it. Not only do we have a
real problem, but we are getting old, and as we get older and
everything, the problem gets more and more critical.
Now just stay with me just one second, if I were to tell
you just this. America is the greatest country on the planet a
million-fold, and with that we have the greatest, the greatest
people, the most loving people, the very, very best of the
best, but we are spoiled rotten. Any way you cut it, we are
spoiled rotten on food. Absolutely, we are taking advantage of
our small family farms beyond belief. You talk about taking for
granted somebody and what they are doing with their work, that
is what we do every day, and we will not address the problem.
The problem is really, really simple. If we do not do
something about this, we are going to have a crisis, at some
point in time, like you cannot imagine. Now, it may be a ways
away, but for God's sake, we surely to goodness deserve to have
a farm bill, you know.
With all that said, you think about depression and
suicide--and I could ask you a bunch of questions, but I am
just going to talk, okay, and here is the deal. I mean, you
just think about the average-sized, small family farm in
America. The average size is about 430 acres. Now, if we could
use 500, just for a second, and we could just think of these
gentlemen that are right here, and just think, what could they
sell their farms for? If they had a 500-acre farm, and many of
them have a whole lot bigger than that, but if they had a 500-
acre farm and it was worth--pick a number, I don't care--
$15,000 an acre, $10,000 an acre, their net worth after they
take care of some debt, is so substantial they could give the
money to Goldman Sachs, never touch the principle, go somewhere
and live, and honest to God, make ten times what they are
making on the farm.
Now, just think about this. What if, at some point in time
of life, some giant corporation, or God forbid a foreign
country, ends up owning a tremendous amount of our farmland in
America. Then think about just this. What if they just, all of
a sudden they farmed one crop, put it in ungodly amounts of
storage, and said, "The price on that corn is $200 a bushel,
and if you don't want to pay that, we are not selling it, and
we are not going to plant again." At that point in time, we
spin in a crisis like you can't fathom.
Now, if you want a mile-long food in a grocery store,
paying 14 percent or whatever it is of your annual income
toward food, quit taking advantage of these people. Quit taking
them for granted. We are going, as a government, we have got
smart people here that can figure out what to do, but we just
do not put any passion and emphasis on it. We don't.
Now I have done this over and over and over and over, and I
have said this forever more. The point in time when we, as a
government, we, as our people, put real passion and emphasis
and importance on this, we will solve it. If we do not solve
it, it is going to bite us, and it will not be pretty.
With all that being said, like I said, I could ask you a
bunch, a bunch of questions. There is no point in me doing
that. I have been on this same rant a bunch of times because I
am on the Ag Committee too, and I am telling you that I can see
it coming. This is like being in a bubble. This is what they
are doing. They are like in a bubble right now, and they are
screaming. They are screaming they have got a problem, they
have got a real, real, real crisis, we do not have young people
going into farming today--why would they? I mean, they are not
nuts. Why would they? Everybody is screaming in the bubble, and
we do not hear them, and we best better hear them, America.
Mr. Chairman, I am done. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Scott. Thank you, Senator Justice. Senator
Warnock.
Senator Warnock. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank
you for organizing this hearing. I want to recognize all of our
panelists, but especially a great Georgian in the room, my
friend, Mr. Zippy Duvall. Thank you for being here. Thank you
for your voice on so many of these important issues, for being
a voice for farmers all across Georgia and all across our
country, and for your lifetime of service.
As you know too well, in recent years it seems like Georgia
farmers have been hit by one thing after another after another.
It is a tough business, and there are so many things that you
cannot control, like the weather, but in addition to that,
rising input costs, and in addition to that, rising input costs
and these weather events that we have seen in recent years that
have created such setbacks for farmers, on top of all of that
we are now dealing with pointless trade wars, and these trade
wars will make it even harder to get their products to
international markets.
I have been honored to work with many of my colleagues
across the aisle to help our farmers get their products to
markets, and now all of that is being disrupted in many ways.
Mr. Duvall, I have heard from Georgia farmers, particularly
older farmers, who are turning to drastic measures like selling
off pieces of their family's farmland and taking out second
mortgages just to stay afloat. Are you hearing similar things
from your Farm Bureau members and friends in Georgia's farming
community, and if so, what concerns you about this.
Mr. Duvall. Yes, sir. All across America I hear the same
thing, and, of course, farmers basically right now are
supportive of this Administration in their effort to try to
level the playing field. We are all praying it all works. I
will tell you, our Farm Bureau policy is that we do not support
tariffs, because we know we are always the brunt of the
repercussions coming from that.
We also know that our farmers have got to have that level
playing field, because 20 percent of our income comes from
trade overseas, and they have got to have it, so they are
willing to wait.
What worries me most, and what I see most, references what
you just said. We are seeing farmers have to sell part of their
land to take another mortgage. When we get to this fall and we
do not have solutions to the trade problems and the tariff
problems, and everyone starts selling a very, very cheap
commodity and cannot pay for the expenses, the inputs that they
have bought to grow that commodity, and then they have to turn
around the next month and go back to their banker and say, "I
am ready to borrow my money to plant next year's crop," and he
has not paid of last year's debt, we are going to be in
serious, serious problems, and you are going to see farmers and
ranchers all over this country go through mental health issues
like you have never seen before since we saw in the 1980's with
high interest rates, and it is going to be very, very
difficult.
Senator Warnock. Feeling forced to sell their land, which
has implications for all of us but certainly you cannot pass it
on to the next generation. Since 2017, the average number of
farmers over the age of 65 increased by 12 percent, just since
2017, so that is one of the things that happens when farmers
are forced to sell.
Can you talk about some of the other consequences both for
the farmers and for us?
Mr. Duvall. If they are forced to sell and that land comes
out of production, it never goes back into production, and
there is so much competition now for land, it prevents young
farmers and beginning farmers that want to go into
agriculture--God help them--have a difficult time finding that
land to do that. Availability of land, availability of money,
loans, is one of the biggest stumbling blocks young farmers and
beginning farmers have going into the business.
Senator Warnock. Access to credit. All of these things.
Would you say that the tariffs and the uncertainty that has
been created around the tariffs have made it worse or tougher,
even tougher in a tough business?
Mr. Duvall. I think in the short term it has not really
affected them yet, but when we get to this fall and they start
selling their commodities, and if we do not have solutions to
the tariff war, then we will have lost some markets that we
have depended on for years, and then we will start seeing the
crisis hit.
Senator Warnock. I think that is just the thing, the
uncertainty, and you having to make decisions within the
context of uncertainty. The people you would have to sell to,
they are having to make decisions, all up and down, all across
the trade zones, which makes it very, very difficult to plan.
Thank you for being a voice in this moment. It is my view
that farmers are not helped by this increasing uncertainty, and
we need to bring some sanity to this conversation about trade,
which, by the way, Congress could do something about trade
tomorrow, if we decided to do it. It is within the wheelhouse
of Congress.
Thank you so very much for your testimony.
Mr. Duvall. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Scott. Senator Tuberville.
Senator Tuberville. I have got one question. Mr. Locker, we
will start with you--all of you can answer it if you want--your
thoughts on this. As long as I have been up here I have been
advocating to permanently repeal the federal estate tax, which
is often called the death tax. I know it means a lot to
farmers. Mr. Locker, we will start with you. Your thoughts.
Mr. Locker. Well, Senator, I think, obviously, you look at
modern agriculture today. I mean, it is a massive investment.
Even small farms, I mean, if you add up all of the assets, and
so any time that you want to pass that along to the next
generation, that comes at a significant cost, and in many cases
it is cost prohibitive.
Yes, doing away with the death tax--and I think we get
bottled in with other businesses, and it could not be farther
from the truth in terms of comparable, that when you are
passing along a farm business that comes with, like I said, a
lot of cost, a lot of assets. It takes a lot to run a farm
today, and so doing away with the death tax is the right thing
to do, to be able to continue to pass it down to the next
generation. Otherwise, it becomes cost prohibitive.
Senator Tuberville. Mr. Duvall, have you got a----
Mr. Duvall. Absolutely, one of the necessary things that we
need to do. A farmer works all his life. I have spent my whole
life buying back my farm my daddy had to sell part of it off.
My whole life, and if we do not fix that problem, if we do not
get rid of inheritance tax, other generations will have to sell
the farm, and that farm will go out of production, and we will
not enjoy the production from those farms, and it has to be
done.
You know, it is just like people say, well, you have got a
lot of land, you have got a lot of wealth. You have to have
land to farm. It is just like having a tractor. It is just like
having a car to go to work in every day, even if you are not
farming. It is something that you have to have to do that job.
Show me a farmer that has a retirement plan. It is tied up
in his land. It is tied up in his land, and when he retires, he
has either got to sell his land or sell it to his children, and
then if you pile inheritance tax on top of that, they have to
sell part of the farm to be able to continue it, and it is one
of the biggest, devastating things that can happen to a family
farm when you have a death and you have to go through that
difficult time.
Senator Tuberville. Mr. Alderman?
Mr. Alderman. I agree with you wholeheartedly. It is double
taxation. It should not be there. You already paid the taxes
once. Why are you going to just put somebody out of business or
make them sell their business or their farm? It should not be
there. I agree with you.
One other thing you might also think about--and this is not
related to that, but somewhat. Years ago, and I am not an
accountant, I am not a CPA. I am a farmer, and we know a little
bit of a lot of nothing, you know, so some of the equipment I
have been looking at of laser weeder, or your AI stuff that is
coming around, it is $1.4 million. I cannot afford it, but
years ago we had a rapid depreciation schedule, where you could
depreciate something real quickly and write it off quicker. Is
that something that can be done? Maybe one of you professors
know what it is now, but that would probably help some of the
farmers out there do some rapid depreciation on farm equipment.
Senator Tuberville. Mr. Wolf, your thoughts on estate tax?
Dr. Wolf. Yes, well, so with the increasing size of the
commercial farms and with the average farmland value being
$4,000--and there are a lot of places where the farmers would
be real happy to be able to buy more land for $4,000 an acre,
so that average is hiding a lot of much higher prices in some
places.
Certainly there is an increasing number of farms that are
running up against the potential to lose some of the value in
an estate tax, and as the other witnesses have said, you know,
you cannot give up the land usually and still be a viable farm,
right. It is not like if you sell it, it is gone, so that
highlights the need to do the farm business succession and
estate planning, and if you do not do that, which is, you know,
it is pretty easy to forget that, and nobody likes to do, by
the way, estate planning. It is not fun. We all need to do it,
but that is kind of admitting that you are going to have to
have that at some point, so that is not fun to do.
Certainly it is different for farm businesses because they
are small and medium sized, family owned, closely held
businesses. It is fundamentally different than other types of
businesses.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you.
Chairman Scott. Mr. Duvall and Mr. Alderman, has Mexico
dumped any crops on farmers in the United States?
Mr. Alderman. Yes.
Chairman Scott. Put your mic on, put your mic on.
Mr. Alderman. Oh, its on.
Chairman Scott. Really? How do they do that?
Mr. Alderman. Well, can I give you a personal example that
happened to me two weeks ago?
Chairman Scott. Yes.
Mr. Alderman. We are selling grape tomatoes to a company in
New York State, okay, and our FOB price is $16.50. We could not
get the order. We have been selling them for quite a while and
could not get the order this week. He said, "I can get them
delivered from Mexico for $10." I can't pick them, pack them,
and grow them for $10. I cannot pick them and pack them for
$10. We could not take the order. I am not going to lose money.
I would just as soon dump it rather than having to lose money.
We dump a lot of tomatoes. If we cannot sell them, we dump
them. We do not have another market for them. It is not like
corn or soybeans that you can keep and sell next month. If we
do not have a market, it goes in to go feed the cows, so there
is an example.
Chairman Scott. Why are your costs higher?
Mr. Alderman. Why?
Chairman Scott. Yes.
Mr. Alderman. Labor. As I mentioned earlier, H-2A labor is
costing me $24 an hour.
Chairman Scott. How did they come up with that?
Mr. Alderman. Well, the--what do you call it, AEWR?
Mr. Duvall. The Adverse Wage Rate.
Chairman Scott. Who did? The Federal Government did that to
you?
Mr. Alderman. Yes, sir.
Chairman Scott. Your friends at the Federal Government?
Mr. Alderman. Am I friends of it?
Chairman Scott. No. Your friends at the Federal Government
did this to you?
Mr. Alderman. Well, you guys are friends, but you can do
something about it. It is not fair, because we have to pay the
housing for them, okay. It is $16.50 an hour, I think it is,
going up to----
Chairman Scott. You have to pay their way to get here? You
have to pay their way home?
Mr. Alderman. We have to pay their way here. We have to pay
their visa. We feed them to get here. When they get here we pay
for their housing, and when they go home we pay for their way
home, their housing, everything.
Chairman Scott. How do they come up with the $16.50 an
hour?
Mr. Duvall. Do you want me to answer that? The wage is set,
the AEWR wage rate is set by a survey done by USDA that is 60
years old, that was created to count the number of employees on
farms, not to set a wage rate. If you go look at the
calculations in that wage rate and what sectors that they used
to calculate it, they even used the wage rate of the H-2A
workers to calculate it. How do you do that? That does not even
make sense.
I have been all across this country. I have been in every
state, out on farms, talking to farmers. I have found three
farmers that filled out that survey, so who is filling the
survey out, where is the data coming from, and why in the world
would we set a wage rate based on a survey that is 60 years old
and was not even designed to set a wage rate by?
Mr. Alderman. May I suggest they go to Mexico and find out
what the average rate that these men were making before they
came over here to work for me or the other farmers or bringing
H-2A workers? It is probably, what, a dollar an hour?
Mr. Duvall. Plus the inspections and regulations that this
gentleman and a lot of our growers have to go through----
Chairman Scott. They do not do that in Mexico?
Mr. Duvall [continuing]. that they do not do in Mexico.
Chairman Scott. You mean, they sell it in our grocery
stores without doing that?
Mr. Alderman. Senator, one question I would like to ask.
Have you ever seen the FDA in Mexico?
Chairman Scott. Nope. You are paying for things that they
do not have to pay for in Mexico.
Mr. Alderman. Exactly.
Chairman Scott. Do you think that our trade policy, we
allow Mexico to dump tomatoes on Florida farmers is fair?
Mr. Alderman. No, sir.
Mr. Duvall. I did have the opportunity to visit Mr. Greer
at USTR, and he and I talked about the dumping. It is not just
tomatoes. It is cucumbers. It is bell peppers. It is cherries.
Chairman Scott. It's blueberries. It's strawberries.
Mr. Duvall. It is cherries from Turkey dumping on what is
happening in Michigan. It is all over the country. It is time
for our country to stand up and say, "No more. You are going to
dump your produce on our farmers."
Chairman Scott. Do you think the Trump administration is
doing the right thing by, you know, what Commerce is doing with
regard to eliminating the suspension agreement on tomatoes,
what Jamieson Greer is doing to try to raise the tariff rates
on produce coming from other countries?
Mr. Alderman. Sir, it is hard to find out what this tariff
Mr. Trump, President Trump is talking about. First it started
at 20 percent. Now it is 17 percent. Let me tell you what will
work, okay. If you have a minimum--what did you call it?
Chairman Scott. Price minimum.
Mr. Alderman. A base that you have. Find out what it costs
to grow a box of tomatoes in South Florida. I am going to say
it is between $12 and $14 a box. Put that base in there, that
they cannot sell it any less than that, and then charge them a
tariff above that. Twenty percent is not enough. It will not
slow them down. If you take away the minimum, whatever they
call it, they take that away, now they can charge you five for
a box of tomatoes and charge 17 percent tariff, it does not
amount to anything. It is not going to slow them down a bit. If
they had a 100 percent tariff on it maybe that would slow them
down.
Go to other countries and see what they do. Go down to the
Bahamas and see, try and ship a box of my tomatoes to the
Bahamas and what happens. You will pay about $20 a box tariff
on, if there is a grower and they are growing tomatoes in
Freeport or in the Bahamas or someplace.
It is not a fair policy. We would just like to be equal and
fair so that we are on the same level playing field.
Chairman Scott. Senator Justice.
Senator Justice. Well, Mr. Chairman, I do not have a whole
lot to say. You know, I know these witnesses are superstars,
and I congratulate you on all the honors and everything that
you have been able to do in your lives. I would really be
interested in how many folks are out here that are in some way,
somehow, involved in agriculture, and I assume that it is most
everybody.
I know this from the bottom of my heart, you know, that for
those that are young, that live on the farm and grew up on the
farm, you want to absolutely, in many situations, you want to
stay there. You love it. You love it with all your soul. Every
one of you loves it with all your soul. You do not want to give
up that way of life in any way, and you are providing a service
for all of us, off the chart, and why can't we get it? Why
can't we really just get it, the fact that you have got
somebody----
You know, a guy told me a long time ago. He was the
president of Stanford Seed Company at the time. His name was
Jim Billings, and Jim Billings said, you know, they were bought
out by another seed company a little bit bigger. They were
going to retain him and everything, and they asked him to write
a job description. He said, "I sat down and I started writing,
and I wrote 13 pages of single-spaced stuff of what I did every
day. Then I just laid my pencil down and thought, and then
picked it back up and said, see, the right person is in the
right job and they are motivated." That is you. That is all of
us that are in agriculture today. We are a production engine
like you cannot imagine. You cannot imagine how good we are at
what we do.
We are smart, too. We have got to solve this riddle, and it
is as complicated as it can possibly be. You have got smart
people that love what they do, and they are motivated by what
they do because of their love. We have just got to solve the
riddle. To solve the riddle, I have never seen a situation in
my life that you can solve it until you absolutely place a
level of importance on it, a big-time level of importance. If
we do not solve it, shame on us. That is all I can say. I have
stood on the top of the mountain and screamed until I am blue-
green. You know, it is a real problem.
Mr. Chairman, thank you, sir.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. Mr. Duvall, how important is it
to buy American products? Why is it important that we grow our
food, and that the food we put in our bodies is grown in
America rather than places like Mexico?
Mr. Duvall. Well, we have absolutely no clue what
conditions or techniques are used in Mexico to grow that food,
and it is----
Chairman Scott. We don't test it? We don't measure it?
Mr. Duvall. They inspect it coming across the border. They
do not have enough inspectors to be able to do it correctly. I
think the Federal Government makes an attempt, but just like I
said, when have you seen inspectors from America over in
another country, inspecting that food before it leaves those
farms and comes to us, like they do at his farm each and every
day?
It is important for us to realize, like in your opening
statement, that food security is national security. If we all
are old enough to remember the long gas lines when we had to
sit in line to get gas, and how it almost brought our country
to its knees. If we all remember how scared we were when COVID
hit, and all of a sudden we saw some shelves at the grocery
store empty. If you do not solve our labor problems and put
profitability back in agriculture, and young people not coming
back to it, we will live to see that day again in this country,
and we will be depending on some other country, whether it is
on our land or their land, to feed us. We will not be a secure
country.
Chairman Scott. If you could do three things that would
impact the American farm, what would be the top three things?
Mr. Duvall. Got to fix trade. Got to fix labor. Got to have
a farm bill.
Chairman Scott. All right. Mr. Locker, from your position
working with Ag businesses, what trends are you seeing in terms
of workforce aging, not just on farms but within the companies
that support Ag?
Mr. Locker. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I mean, we are seeing it
across the board. First and foremost, the whole agribusiness
community obviously is driven by the health of the farmer. By
having a farming population that is profitable, predictable,
that drives everybody.
Now we are coming off an almost 40-year period of pretty
stable workforce coming off the farm. That, as I mentioned in
my opening statement, is drying up. It is irrespective of
whether it is crop inputs, Ag machinery, retailers,
cooperatives. All of them across the industry are facing the
same thing, and because many of the executive leadership has
been in place for 30, 40 years, in agriculture.
What we are faced with is what happens when--and I saw a
statistic not too long ago that up to half of the current
executives across agribusiness could be retiring between now
and 2035, and with that goes all that institutional knowledge.
All of the services, all of the technology, all of the things
that we do to help the farmer produce, like I said, the largest
and safest food supply on the planet, all of that institutional
knowledge can go away. It is definitely an issue that we are
facing.
Now, we have done a lot of things recently, working with
companies, on succession plans, on mentorships, and even an
interesting conversation I had the other day with a company
that they are even looking, because of technology and AI,
reverse mentorships, actually pairing young people with the
senior executive to help them understand the next generation of
leaders and how you talk to them and how you get them attracted
to agriculture, as well as technology.
The trends are there, and what I would say--and Senator
Justice, I could not say it any better--we need a stable
farming community which starts with a farm bill. Once we get
that stabilized, then the investment comes back in, the
investment in technology, the investment in the tools that the
farmers need. Because right now, much of that investment is
being held up because of lack of predictability, lack of
profitability at the farm, and so we need that stability.
Then the other thing I would say, to close with, is we need
a greater share of mind in the U.S. today about agriculture. We
need to attract a whole new generation of future leaders to
agriculture. Because by being able to say, look, agriculture
has transformed and we are going through another technology
transformation as we speak, like a lot of industries are, with
AI and on-farm automation, and so the technology and the domain
experience that we are going to need to attract to Ag is going
to be unparalleled over the next several years.
I think by working with Congress to say, yes, we have said
it more than once today, food security is national security.
Let's get a narrative out there that says, and because of that,
we need to attract more people into the agriculture community,
now more than ever before.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. Dr. Wolf, from your research
what are the most significant financial barriers facing aging
dairy farmers who are looking to retire or transition their
operations to the next generation?
Dr. Wolf. Senator Scott, the biggest problem is to be
actively engaged in farming and be able to transfer or sell
those assets at a fair value so that you can fund your
retirement. Because again, these farmers, they do not have
401(k)'s or 403(b)'s. Their money is tied up in the farming
assets, so they have got to make it work, and there are ways to
do it, but it takes planning ahead of time, and it takes
considering things like long-term leases and land contracts and
things like that to make it work, and if you do not do that,
then it becomes infeasible.
Tax policy is part of it, and there are some things that we
have in the tax code that work now, and some things that you
maybe are thinking about extending that could help. Again, a
lot of it is just an information problem. Also, as Mr. Locker
pointed out, I think correctly, where we definitely see more
people want to go into agriculture when it is profitable. If
you grow up on a farm and it looks like your parents are
struggling, it is not something you are going to want to come
back to, so that is definitely key.
Chairman Scott. Mr. Duvall, you have talked to Jamieson
Greer, and I assume you have talked to Secretary Rollins. We
are talking about trade policy. It takes two people to get a
deal done, right? Do you think we are better off to just leave
it as it is, or try to improve our trade policy to stop the
dumping?
Mr. Duvall. We have to try to improve our trade policy.
What we have done in the past has not worked. We have not
regained some of the markets that we lost in the trade war
eight years ago. We need trade deals. We need access. We need
certainty, and you give our farmers a level playing field, they
will compete with anybody on Earth. Yes, of course, especially
during harvest time, tomatoes, strawberries, they should not be
able to be allowed to dump here on top and just depress the
price to the point where the farmer cannot successfully run a
business under all of the rules and regulations that cost them
tons of money to abide by in this country.
Chairman Scott. What Secretary Rollins and Secretary
Lutnick and Trade Rep Grier are trying to do, do you think, you
know as difficult as it is, it is worth trying, to try to
improve our trade policy with other countries.
Mr. Duvall. That is what I hear our farmers say. Short
term, they are willing to take the pain. Long term, we have got
to have solutions. They cannot handle it for a long period of
time. When we go into this fall, with this expensive crop that
is in the ground and the cheap commodities that they are going
to have to sell, it is really going to be difficult for our
farmers all across America.
Chairman Scott. Mr. Duvall, when you talk about the farm
bill, what is in it that is important to you?
Mr. Duvall. Renewed Title I with increase in reference
prices. Continued support for crop insurance. You know, a
farmer, small, medium, or large, growing whatever he might
grow, deserves to have a risk management tool, that he
participates in, to be able to cover his risks that he has got
in that crop. It ought not be limited to certain commodities.
It ought to be widespread to all commodities, all sizes of
farms.
Research and development dollars are so crucial. That is
what keeps us on the cutting edge of agriculture. That is what
keeps us the leading production place in the world is the
research and development dollars that are spent at great
universities like Cornell and University of Georgia and
University of Florida.
Then, of course, our conservation programs. These lands
that we accumulate, that we have to have the farm on, those
natural resources, and our neighbors, we all are entitled to
have and protecting that. Farming does not allow the luxury of
a farm to make enough money to do all that protection, so
conservation programs--140 million acres have been voluntarily
put in conservation programs across America--that is the size
of California and New York--because it was voluntary and the
government participated in helping us protect those natural
resources on the land.
All of those programs, and even the trade part of the farm
bill, where we help sell products, our products overseas. All
of those programs are so important to agriculture in the farm
bill. That is why we have got to have--we have been kicking
this can down the road two years, and the uncertainty has
caught up with our farmers. It has caught up with our bankers.
It is going to catch up to the American people.
Chairman Scott. Mr. Alderman, you have been dealing with
all the red tape of the federal and local governments and state
governments. What would be your top three things that you would
want to change that would have a positive impact on your farm?
Mr. Alderman. You mentioned crop insurance a minute ago,
okay. Crop insurance needs to be analyzed to take into
consideration the specialty crops that we grow. I can lose a
whole crop in south Florida with a hurricane, like we did in
October, and have crop insurance, and still do not qualify for
getting paid. We take it out every year, but crop insurance was
written out in the Midwest, for Midwestern farmers, and has no
idea about vegetable farmers in South Florida, and we just
never qualify. We have to have it. That would help.
I think some of the regulations that are coming down from
the FDA right now, from some of my neighbors, it is really
scary whether they will be able to continue farming because of
them. If they are going to come inspect everything and every
little thing that there is going to be then maybe they should
try to help us find out what the problem is and help solve the
problem, like coming in, "I have got you. Now I'm going to put
you in jail." It is really bad, because this is America. It is
supposed to be free. We have got a government that, years ago
when I was a kid, government actually helped you. You had
different agencies that helped farmers do things, and they
would survey your land for you and get it level, and do so many
things for you, but today, all that is gone. I guess there is
some part of it still left.
The inspection part of it, with what the FDA is doing--one
of my neighbors, one of my friends, just last week, it is
terrible. It is terrible.
What other problems would I have? We just want a level
playing field again. Make it so that we are competitive with
our neighbors to the south and to the north. I mean, Canada
grows a lot of hothouse tomatoes that compete with us every
day, on the shelves in the grocery stores.
We would like to be fair. I do not want the government to
subsidize anything I grow. If we are competing with countries
that are subsidizing their farmers, do something to make it a
level playing field. I am not smart enough to figure out what
that would be. You have got some economists, again, but put
something on it so we are on a level playing field. Just get us
equal.
Chairman Scott. If you would tell somebody going to a
grocery store, that is buying produce, why would they buy an
American product rather than a product from China or Mexico?
Why should they do it?
Mr. Alderman. Number one, we have got food safety
regulations that we have in every farm out here now. I hire a
full-time person. That is all she does is food safety. She goes
around with swabs, measuring stuff every day, sending them off
to find out. Our food is safe here, the safest food in the
world. I would not hesitate--that is true. You do not know what
you are getting from Mexico or Guatemala or any of these other
countries. I have been to those countries and I see how they
farm and what their safety protocols are, which they do not
have any, so that would be it.
It is fresher, if you buy my tomatoes, I pick it today and
it is in the market tomorrow. It is not sitting in a cooler for
two days, three weeks, or on a trailer coming from wherever,
from Chile. It is picked here, it goes to the grocery store
warehouse that evening, and it is in their store the next day.
It is fresh.
Chairman Scott. Right now your produce is inspected, and we
allow people to send produce into our country without an
inspection.
Mr. Alderman. I do not think that is quite true. They do
inspect loads coming across the border. It is not only the food
safety part of it. It is what I mentioned earlier, the invasive
insects and diseases. We get a new thrip coming into South
Florida every two years, and it takes us three or four years to
figure out how to combat it or take care of it. It is either
thrips or pepper weevils or some new disease, a new virus
coming in on tomatoes from another country.
I do not know what the answer to it is. You cannot stop
shipping it in. We have got to have it, I guess, and it is not
only vegetables. There are diseases and insects coming in on
plants, on flowers. All that stuff comes into the Port of Miami
and Miami International Airport. They get a bad lot of it and
it goes to the junkman, and the next thing you know that insect
takes over and we are fighting it for the rest of our lives.
Cannot get rid of them.
Chairman Scott. You have been doing this for 45 years?
Mr. Alderman. Probably longer, closer to 50.
Chairman Scott. Do you like it? Why do you like it? Why do
you like being a farmer?
Mr. Alderman. I like growing things. I like to see things
grow.
We were talking about stress earlier. I could not do
anything else. I could have been a road builder, gone into
construction in South Florida. You know how busy it is there,
but I chose agriculture.
Chairman Scott. When you go out to the farm, is it great to
be around the animals?
Mr. Alderman. Well, I did have some animals, but tomatoes
are not animals, but I love watching a crop grow. You know, I
do not physically do the work anymore, but there is nothing on
that farm I have not done, from picking to everything there is.
I started with zero.
Mr. Duvall. I farm because I love my animals. He and I just
had the greatest visit, talking cows. I mean, I absolutely love
spending time with----
Chairman Scott. What kind of cows do you have?
Mr. Duvall. Sir?
Chairman Scott. What kind of cows?
Mr. Duvall. I have beef cattle, mostly Angus. A few white
ones here and there.
Mr. Alderman. That is the most relaxing, clearing your head
out, is to go ride and look at the cows. Take the day. You have
got to drive two hours from where my ranch is, and go count
calves, look at the cows, figure out how much grass you have
got, how much water we got, and take care of those animals.
Mr. Duvall. Rotational grazing, doing all the right things
for the grass and the soil to make sure it grows. Using chicken
litter on my farm for fertilization, using comprehensive
nutrient management plans that the County Extension office
helps me----
Chairman Scott. Do you grow your own hay?
Mr. Duvall. I grow my own hay. You know, I mean, it is so
rewarding, and probably the biggest, biggest benefit, asset of
being a farmer is being able to raise your children there. When
my son went to war, his commander officer wrote me a
handwritten letter, and he says, "When I started working your
boy, I knew he was from the farm, and I wish I had a whole,
whole troop like him," because he had the work ethic. Raising
my children on the farm, making them understand how to take
care of not just plants but animals, and do it with all your
heart, as though you were working for the Lord, not for the
man, there is nothing more rewarding than that.
There is nothing more stressful and disappointing than to
go to the mailbox, pull out all the bills and your paycheck and
not having enough to pay the bills with, after you put your
heart and soul into it, and watch your heart break when your
children cannot come back and do it, and make a living. We all
would love to do it.
Chairman Scott. What are we going to lose if we lose our
family farms? What is the biggest thing we are going to lose?
Mr. Duvall. We are going to lose a way of life that built
this country, and the values that we learned, of loving,
caring, whether it is soil, people, animals. Just good old
living.
Mr. Alderman. It is a way of life that cannot be replaced.
Mr. Duvall. It cannot be replaced, and it is not matched
anywhere else.
Mr. Alderman. You cannot buy it. You cannot sell it. You
cannot replace it.
Chairman Scott. Well, I want to thank everybody for being
here. I look forward to continuing working with all of my
fellow Senators.
If any additional Senators have additional questions for
the witnesses or statements to be added, the hearing record
will be open until next Wednesday at 5:00 p.m.
I want to thank all of you. I want to thank you for being
here. I just think farming is just a really rewarding
opportunity and way of life. Thanks for being here.
[Whereupon, at 5:45 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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APPENDIX
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Prepared Witness Statements
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U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging
"The Aging Farm Workforce: America's Vanishing Family Farms"
June 4, 2025
Prepared Witness Statements
Zippy Duvall
Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Gillibrand, and members of
the Committee, including from my home state of Georgia, Senator
Warnock, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you
today.I am Zippy Duvall, a third generation Georgia farmer and
president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, representing
farm families in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. I am fortunate
to follow in my father and grandfather's footsteps by taking
over our family farm. Today, my son and I operate a beef cow
herd, raise broiler chickens, and have restored the land that
has been in our family for over 90 years.
The latest USDA Census of Agriculture revealed that nearly
40% of all farmers are at or beyond retirement age, while just
8% of farmers are under the age of 35. As older farmers outpace
younger farmers, we should all be concerned about the future of
family farms and the security of our food supply.
As this Committee identified in its March 2025 report,
"America's Aging Farm Workforce," there are many challenges
facing the agriculture community, but there are also
opportunities to support young and beginning farmers and help
sustain the current agriculture workforce, including a new farm
bill.
Farm Economy and Farm Bill Reauthorization
I shared this with the Senate Agriculture Committee earlier
this year, and the urgency has only increased since then. We
need a modernized, five-year farm bill. Farmers and ranchers
have faced unprecedented volatility since the last farm bill
was reauthorized in 2018. A pandemic, record-high inflation,
rising supply costs, and global unrest have hit family farms,
making it harder for many to hold on. Sadly, the 2022 census
showed the loss of over 140,000 farms in five years. That's an
average of 77 farms per day.
This year, farmers will plant one of the most expensive
crops ever. Due to rising interest rates, higher energy prices,
and input costs that have gone unchecked, many farmers face the
tough decision of whether or not to plant a crop. This is why
an increase to the farm bill's Title I safety net is critical.
USDA's most recent Farm Sector Income Forecast has shown a
$41 billion decrease in net farm income, down nearly 25% from
2022. Since crop prices peaked in 2022, they have taken a
nosedive. Corn and wheat are down 37%, soybeans down 28%, and
cotton down 22%.
At the same time, input prices have remained high. As
compared to 2020, the cost to produce an acre of corn has grown
by nearly 30% nationally. The combination of low crop prices
and high supply costs has many farmers facing losses on every
acre they plant. Despite these increased costs, 2024 payments
to farmers are projected to be the lowest since 1982.
Access to Credit
Additionally, farm debt is expected to continue to increase
in 2025 to more than $560 billion. That's a half trillion
dollars in debt. As farms continue to carry larger debt loads
without increasing net cash revenue, they also experience
worsening credit. In previous years, farmers and ranchers
supported their credit with continuously increasing farmland
values, but those increases have slowed. As farms lose options
to support continued borrowing and use up their limited working
capital, many farms may close before reaching the point of
bankruptcy.
Our members support streamlining farm loan programs to
better meet the evolving needs of farmers and ranchers. This
includes ensuring loan amounts reflect rising farm-level
expenses and reducing burdensome application requirements for
young and beginning farmers to better align with standard
agricultural lending practices. We also support prioritizing
access to direct and guaranteed loan funds for applicants who
are either new to farming or experiencing temporary financial
hardship due to adverse ecological or industry-related
conditions. We commend USDA Secretary Rollins' Small Family
Farms Policy Agenda. It highlights the need to reform loan
programs to streamline delivery and increase program
efficiencies.
2025 Tax Legislation
At a time of great economic uncertainty, farmers, ranchers
and many other small businesses are facing the prospect of what
may be the largest tax increase in American history. Failing to
extend the expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs
Act (TCJA) would take billions of dollars out of farmers'
pockets when they have no dollars to spare. One provision that
is crucial for keeping family farms going from one generation
to the next is the increased estate tax exemption. If the
exemption level reverts, many families risk losing their farms.
Congress must find a way to create a stable business
environment by making permanent the expiring TCJA provisions
and ensuring America's farms and ranches can continue to
provide the food, fiber and renewable fuel this country needs.
Farm Bureau was pleased to see progress made with the House
passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act two weeks ago.
Farm Labor
Of course, we cannot paint the full picture on this issue
without talking about the employees who work alongside us. For
many of us, they are like family, and they are aging right
along with us. That's a problem because most Americans don't
have any interest in working on a farm, despite big investments
in recruitment. Congress must confront that reality and do
something about it, starting with necessary reforms for our
agricultural workforce. That means modernizing our outdated
system by making crucial improvements to the H-2A guest worker
program and recognizing farmworkers as essential to feeding and
fueling our country.
AFBF Young Farmers and Ranchers Program
Finally, it can be difficult for young farmers to find
peers to connect with and share ideas. Farm Bureau's Young
Farmers & Ranchers (YF&R) Program creates space for that
connection-fostering collaboration, leadership development, and
community for young leaders. I would not be where I am today
without Farm Bureau's county, state, and national YF&R program.
I made lifelong friends and gained leadership skills that
continue to serve me well today.
Farm Bureau is proud to support young agricultural leaders,
but we need your partnership to ensure they can thrive.
A country that cannot feed its people is not secure, and to
meet the growing demand for food, fiber and renewable fuel at
home and abroad, we must ensure the continued strength of our
farming and ranching communities. I look forward to working
with you to support the next generation of farmers.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today's hearing. I am
happy to answer any questions the Committee has.
U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging
"The Aging Farm Workforce: America's Vanishing Family Farms"
June 4, 2025
Prepared Witness Statements
Jim Alderman
Good afternoon my name is Jim Alderman. I own and operate
Alderman Farms in Boynton Beach Florida. I am proud to be a
lifelong farmer and honored to represent Florida agriculture
here today. I have the privilege of serving as the 2025 Florida
Farm Bureau Federation farmer of the year. I appreciate the
opportunity to speak with you about an issue that affects me
personally, the aging of the American farm workforce.
I began Alderman Fa1ms in 1979. We fa1m approximately 1200
acres in eastern Palm Beach County Florida. We are a
diversified farming operation, growing mixed organic vegetables
and particularly vine, ripe tomatoes, the finest tomato you'll
ever eat in the US. South Florida has a very unique climate
which allows us to produce vegetables during the winter months,
but it also brings unique challenges, hurricanes, invasive
pests, development pressure, and rising input cost. You learn
to adapt, you also learn that it is not a sprint, it's a
lifelong commitment.
At the age of 78, I've spent almost 4 1/2 decades working
the land. I still wake up before sunrise most days like many of
my peers. I am still going strong because there's more work to
be done. According to the committee's report, the average
farmer is now 58 years old. In Florida, nearly 40% of our
producers are 65 or older. We're proud of our experience and
knowledge, but the question I ask is who is coming behind us?
That's the part that keeps me up at night. It's just not
growing crops. It's also passing down knowledge discipline in
our way of life, but that chain of succession is breaking.
Nationwide less than 9% of the farmers are under 35 years of
age and then the numbers are even more sobering in states like
mine. Young people want to farm but they're running into walls
such as land being expensive. Equipment is even more expensive.
The cost of financing is very difficult.
The big question is why are farmers selling out, without
young men and women stepping in. The incentive to make a profit
is not there. We may ask why can't they make a profit. The
first reason is that imports are being shipped into this
country below our production costs. If a farmer cannot make
money, he's not able to expand his operation. lf he has the
opportunity to sell his land to make money, then development
comes in parking lots, residential communities, and no
agriculture.
How can we help farmers make it so that we are competitive
with our neighbors to the south and north? We have to be on the
same level playing field.
Another problem farmers face is the invasion of invasive
insects and diseases that come into our country from other
countries.
For example, we have seen in Florida that citrus greening
has devastated the citrus industry. We have gone from 240
million boxes of oranges in production to around 40 million
boxes today, all because of an insect that came in with
bacteria that causes citrus greening. I think that it would
help our industry if we had better inspections in our ports of
entry to combat the invasive insects, and diseases that come
into our country.
One of the other problems we have is that we are being
over-regulated. Food safety is of primary concern for Alderman
Farms. We are very careful to make sure that we have the safest
produce coming from our farms. Presently we have several food
safety inspections. It would be great to have one inspection
that would serve everyone.
Again, farmers must make a profit. They must make money to
continue their operation or they will take the easy way out and
sell their property and retire. Free and equal trade between
our neighboring countries is a must as you know labor is a
major problem in agriculture. We are now dependent on H2A labor
from Mexico because we cannot get enough domestic labor to
harvest our crops. Agricultural labor reform is a must.
If we want to sustain agriculture in America, we need to
smooth the path between generations which means investing in
beginning farmer programs, expanding technical assistance, and
offering incentives like estate planning support and make it
easier to transfer farms without losing the land or the legacy.
These aren't just policy tweaks, they are steps in our food
system to prevent eroding one generation at a time.
I come before you today not just as a farmer, but as
someone who cares deeply about the future of the country's food
supply. We need strong, bipartisan action to support aging
fa1mers invest in new generations, and keep American
agriculture alive and well for decades to come.
Thank you for recognizing the urgency of this issue and
thank you for giving farmers like me a voice.
U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging
"The Aging Farm Workforce: America's Vanishing Family Farms"
June 4, 2025
Prepared Witness Statements
Aaron Locker
Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Gillibrand, and Members of
the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I
am honored to testify on a challenge that is rapidly reshaping
the future of American agriculture. I appreciate your time and
your dedication to the future of the American agriculture
industry. My name is Aaron Locker, after growing up on a small
farm in Ohio, this is my 36th year of serving US agriculture. I
am now a Managing Director at Kincannon & Reed, the world's
largest executive search and leadership development firm
identifying and recruiting leaders exclusively for
organizations that feed the world.
For over 40 years, we've partnered with organizations
across the food and agricultural value chain-from producers and
processors to biotech startups and global food brands. Our
mission is simple: to help organizations that feed the world
find and develop the leadership they need to thrive. Today, I'm
here to sound the alarm on a crisis that is unfolding quietly,
but rapidly, across the heart of our industries, and the
consequences for our food supply, our rural communities, and
our national security are serious.
The Leadership Vacuum
We are moving from a forty-year period of stable senior
leadership in farms, agribusiness, and agricultural
organizations into a period where the pipeline of "farm-grown"
leadership is scarce. More and more, organizations will be
required to look to younger leaders or outside the traditional
talent channels. In 2025, we will reach a global record for the
number of people turning 65. For every potential leader aged
35-50, two are preparing to retire. In agriculture, where many
senior leaders have been in place for decades, this creates an
acute succession challenge.
What is more concerning is that the next generation of
leaders, especially those from rural and farm backgrounds, is
significantly smaller. That is not by accident.
A Shrinking Talent Pool and the Legacy of the Farm Crisis
The 1980s farm crisis didn't just damage balance sheets. It
changed the outlook for talent across the agriculture industry
and the outlook for entire communities. Many parents,
understandably, discouraged their children from returning to
the land or pursuing careers in agriculture. While college
attendance overall rose nearly seven percent between 1980 and
1990, enrollment in land grant colleges of agriculture- like
Texas A&M, the University of Nebraska, University of Minnesota,
and Iowa State University and others dropped by nearly 37
percent.
Despite the continued strength of land-grant institutions,
the share of students in agricultural programs has remained
small and, in some cases, has declined or stagnated over the
past decade. That gap is now showing up in boardrooms, field
offices, agronomy teams, management and executive benches
across the food and agriculture sector.
Complexity Is Rising, But Leadership Is Lagging
At the same time, the business of agriculture is growing
more complex. Today's operations require fluency in data
analytics, automation, sustainability metrics, and global
trade. Precision Ag and automation are growing at over 12
percent annually, but the leadership capable of connecting new
technologies with practical farm and business applications is
in short supply.
Fewer than one-third of the agribusinesses we work with
have a formal succession plan in place. That is not just a
statistic-it is a systemic risk.
Job growth in agriculture is steady at three percent
annually, but industries like tech and finance are growing
three times faster and are drawing top talent away from the
food system. We are not just competing for attention-we are
competing for leadership.
No other sector blends health, nutrition, energy, and
technology like agriculture. We have built the safest, most
abundant food supply in the world, but that system will not
sustain itself without the people who lead it. Food security is
national security.
Profitability and Regulatory Certainty Are Essential
Attracting and retaining the next generation of farmers and
agribusiness leaders also depends on ensuring that agriculture
remains a profitable, sustainable career path. That means
reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens, improving clarity
across agencies, and providing a policy environment that
rewards innovation and risk-taking. When producers and
agribusinesses are buried under duplicative regulations or face
constantly shifting standards, it creates uncertainty that
discourages investment and succession. We must ensure that
those working in agriculture see a viable economic future, one
that supports reinvestment, transition planning, and long-term
commitment to the land.
What Congress Can Do
This is not a challenge that the private sector can address
alone. It will take bold, coordinated public-private
leadership. Congress has a vital role to play. I respectfully
offer four recommendations:
1. Pass a Strong, Fully Funded Farm Bill A
comprehensive Farm Bill is the foundation of long-term
stability for the agriculture industry. It empowers rural
development, research institutions, and workforce training
programs to invest in the future with confidence.
2. Promote Agriculture as a Purpose-Driven, Modern
Career Path We must reposition agriculture as a high-tech,
mission-focused sector. Congress should support a national
campaign to highlight agriculture as a high-tech, purpose-
driven career path-one that welcomes diverse and forward-
thinking talent from all backgrounds.
3. Invest in Agricultural Leadership Development
Support USDA-backed scholarships, fellowships, and executive
leadership training in partnership with land-grant
universities, community colleges, and agricultural nonprofits.
The next generation of Ag CEOs, researchers, sustainability
officers, and policy experts must be equipped and empowered to
lead.
4. Expand Rural Workforce Development and Urban-Rural
Talent Pathways Congress should strengthen community college Ag
programs, fund apprenticeships, veteran transitions, provide
relocation and retraining support to professionals entering
agriculture from nontraditional backgrounds. We must build
bridges that connect talent to opportunity in rural America.
Conclusion
The industries of food and agriculture are changing faster
than ever, but our leadership pipeline is not keeping pace.
This is not just a workforce issue. It is a threat to the
resilience of the most essential system in the country-our food
supply.
If we want a competitive, sustainable future for American
agriculture, we need a serious, sustained investment in people.
That means identifying and supporting leaders early, removing
the barriers that discourage their entry, and creating an
environment where they can grow and succeed.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I commend
the Committee for its focus on this issue and welcome your
questions.
Respectfully submitted, Aaron Locker Managing Director
Kincannon & Reed
U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging
"The Aging Farm Workforce: America's Vanishing Family Farms"
June 4, 2025
Prepared Witness Statements
Chris A. Wolf, Ph.D.
Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Gillibrand, and Members of
the Committee, thank you for inviting me to be part of this
hearing. I currently serve as the E.V. Baker Professor of
Agricultural Economics in the Charles H. Dyson School of
Applied Economics and Management and the College of Agriculture
and Life Sciences at Cornell University where I have been a
faculty member since 2019. I have a three-way split that
includes research, extension and teaching. My research and
extension program focuses on dairy markets and policy as well
as dairy farm finance and business management where I provide
information and analysis and decision-making aids for industry
stakeholders and policymakers. I have taught Farm Business
Management and Agricultural Finance classes for the past 25
years. I also serve as the Director of Land Grant Programs and
Faculty Director of the NY FarmNet program.
My home State of New York is the fifth largest producer of
milk is in the midst of $2.5 billion in new, private sector
investment in dairy manufacturing. To enable this growth,
Cornell is focused on helping ensure our family farms thrive,
bringing the next generation back to the farm, increasing
production in a sustainable way, and training both college
bound and non-college bound students for dairy processing
careers in the primarily rural areas where dairy manufacturing
is locating. Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
and Cooperative Extension Service are top ranked. At Cornell,
we are proud to be in the Ivy League but, unique among the Ivy
League Universities, also situated in the public system
affiliated with the State University of New York as a contract
college.
It has become conventional wisdom that first, farmer age is
increasing and second, this is a problem for the long-term
viability of food and fiber production in the US. Not
surprisingly, there is a great deal of nuance to the actual
statistics and industry implications. It is undeniably correct
that average (and median) farm operator age has been increasing
over time. However, it is also true that relative to the U.S.
population, U.S. farmers have become slightly younger (i.e.,
the average/median U.S. age has increased relatively more than
the average farmer age). There are a number of explanations for
the increased age of U.S. farmers. One is that there are an
increasing share of commercial farms that are multi-
generational in nature. Rather than the kids (or grandkids)
operating separate farms, they return to the operation to
become owners and enable economies of size in production and
management. In this case, the management team has a younger
average age that is masked by considering only the primary
operator. Another explanation is that the changing role of
farmers from being a combination of management and labor to
primarily managing the labor and capital enables a relatively
older person to run a farm. Modern agricultural production
tends to be quite capital intensive and that capital
accumulation occurs over that manager's lifetime. The result is
that the average farm age will be older. Finally, given that
the USDA definition of a farm is "any place from which $1,000
or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or
normally would have been sold, during the year" there are a
large percentage of farms that are operated as part time
businesses or hobbies (and there is nothing wrong with that).
This definition also means that if someone retires to some
rural acreage, they will be included as a farm and increase the
average farmer age.
This is not meant to imply that there are not issues with
farm viability that are related to increasing farmer age. These
include hurdles that limit the entry of young people to farming
and the need to facilitate the transfer of farm assets to the
next generation while providing the resources necessary for the
retirement of the older generation. Family-owned farms, which
are 96 percent of U.S. farms (2022 Ag Census, NASS), are
closely held businesses. The farm business tends to be of the
size that meets the management constraints and income needs of
the family owner-operators. Because of the capital
requirements, the farm business assets tend to be the
retirement plan for many farmers. While many farmers hope to
pass the business on to the next generation, they also need to
recover the equity value to finance retirement. Three areas
must be transferred to maintain the farm business across
generations. First, income which can be transferred by paying a
wage, bonuses, and profit sharing. Second, ownership which can
be transferred by allowing the next generation to gradually
acquire property. Business organization options such as
corporations or LLC can facilitate transfer of farm business
assets which can be sold or gifted. Finally, management can be
transferred gradually through responsibilities for certain
enterprises or management areas.
In contrast to the 1980's, there is currently a great deal
of energy and opportunity in U.S. agriculture for new entrants
in farming as well as related industries from technical service
providers to food retailers. According to the 2022 Census of
Agriculture (USDA-NASS, 2024), in 2022 young producers (those
under the age of 35), accounted for 9% of the country's 3.37
million producers. Eighty-one percent of young producers
started farming in the last 10 years, and 64% reported having a
primary occupation other than farming. Young producer operated
farms accounted for 15% of U.S. agriculture sales and 12% of
U.S. farmland (Census of Agriculture). Attracting the next
generation of farm business owner/managers means making the
profession attractive in terms of potential income and rural
amenities including availability and proximity to childcare and
healthcare. Some of the impediments to successful inter-
generational farm transfer-for both the older and the younger
generations-relate to information gaps. This is where land-
grant extension programs like Cornell Cooperative Extension can
be a valuable partner.
NY FarmNet is a program that was created in 1986 in
response to the farm financial crisis. The program operates a
toll-free number that responds to requests with a team of
financial and mental health professionals to meet with farm
families at no cost. Including mental health professionals was
motivated by the alarming fact that farmers face higher rates
of depression and suicide than the general population. For
example, male farmers have a suicide rate 3.5 times higher than
the national average (National Rural Health Association).
Financial stress is one of the primary contributors to the
depression and suicide rate. Additionally, mental health stigma
and lack of access to care are major barriers.
NY FarmNet receives about 700 calls a year resulting in 400
new cases being opened annually. The remaining calls are
referred for technical, accounting, or legal assistance. The
stressors that FarmNet consistently finds in the farm
population are financial as well as family issues. Sources of
financial stress include price uncertainty, labor cost and
availability, capital costs, land access, and estate and
succession planning. Family-related farm stressors include
health insurance, childcare, eldercare, and drug and alcohol
abuse. Agriculture ranks among the most dangerous industries in
the U.S. Occupational hazards such as pesticide exposure,
machinery accidents, and musculoskeletal injuries are common.
Healthcare related issues relate to not just cost but also
availability and proximity. Transportation barriers affect
access to care, especially for older farmers and those in
remote areas. Farmers often report delaying or avoiding
healthcare due to cost, distance, or time constraints. Many
farmers are underinsured or uninsured, especially those who are
self-employed or operate small family farms. Telehealth is a
promising development for farmers in remote areas but broadband
access remains limited in many rural areas, hindering
telehealth expansion. As of 2024, 22% of rural Americans still
lacked reliable high-speed internet.
Farm business succession is a key source of financial and
family-related stress on farms and FarmNet consultants work
with client families regularly on this issue. NY FarmNet and
Cornell Cooperative Extension offer educational workshops and
materials on farm business succession and estate transfer. In
2024, FarmNet assisted farm businesses that represented over
$13 million in revenue and 600 employees keeping more than
180,000 acres actively in farming. 90% of FarmNet clients
viewed the service as valuable and would recommend it to
others. FarmNet experience is that farm managers who
participate in programs aimed at estate planning and farm
business transfer are likely to engage with attorneys and
accountants to complete a successful inter-generational
transfer. We believe that FarmNet is a model that would be
useful across the country. Funding for land-grant applied
research and extension programs can provide valuable assistance
to help ensure successful farm business transitions and a
healthy U.S. agricultural sector.
=======================================================================
Questions for the Record
=======================================================================
U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging
"The Aging Farm Workforce: America's Vanishing Family Farms"
June 4, 2025
Questions for the Record
Zippy Duvall
Senator Jon Husted
Question:
There are approximately 30 federal laws and 15 different
federal agencies that govern food safety. What can Congress do
to streamline and coordinate this oversight and reduce the
number incidences of food borne pathogens in the food supply
such as salmonella and E.coli?
Response:
American consumers can be confident the food they are
consuming is safe and secure thanks to the careful practices of
farmers and ranchers and our nation's science-based regulatory
system. Protecting a safe and healthy food supply to meet
public demand is critical for national security. Federal
oversight of food safety is vast with multiple agencies and
laws governing it.
While USDA should be the lead agency in the development and
administration of food safety guidelines and should serve as
the sole federal agency responsible for food inspection and
safety, the current system is confusing and duplicative across
several agencies. Until then, USDA and FDA should work more
collaboratively with current guidelines to benefit food
producers. For instance, growers are subject to multiple, often
unpredictable, food safety audits throughout the year between
state and federal government regulators and retailer/
distributor requirements. These duplicative inspections result
in costly inefficiencies and red tape that could be avoided by
harmonizing these audit requirements without sacrificing our
robust food safety standards, which are grounded in sound
scientific risk standards. Additionally, we support having
employees from state agencies acting as authorized agents of
FDA to conduct federally authorized inspections mandated under
the Food Safety Modernization Act.
Improvements to the food recall system are needed as well.
Overly broad public announcements on food recalls with
incomplete information devastates growers of specific products
within their limited market windows. It can result in market
distortions that needlessly shift production in certain regions
and lead to seismic loss of markets. To mitigate against these
effects, investments in food safety technology to improve
accuracy and timeliness of recalls must be prioritized to avoid
sweeping announcements that undermine confidence in the food
system and preserve the viability of domestic growers.
Any legislative and regulatory efforts to streamline
regulations and minimize redundancies for farmers and ranchers
without sacrificing our high food safety standards is welcomed
and appreciated. American Farm Bureau will continue to monitor
initiatives to improve and streamline food safety to ensure
that policies and procedures are in place that further build
the trust and reliability in U.S. agriculture for the benefit
of our farmers and ranchers as well as consumers. We welcome
federal lawmakers to be productive partners in improving our
food safety system that protects consumers and bolsters farmers
and domestic food production.
=======================================================================
Statements for the Record
=======================================================================
U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging
"The Aging Farm Workforce: America's Vanishing Family Farms"
June 4, 2025
Statements for the Record
BPR Lab Statement
BPR Lab, a multidisciplinary group of geriatric physicians,
board-certified healthcare architects, and bioethicists,
appreciate the opportunity to submit comments for the Special
Committee's hearing on physical activity in older adults. Our
area of expertise is the impact our built environment has on
the mobility and physical activity of older adults.
It has long been known that architecture shapes the
activities of people within a building. What is new is the
extent to which architecture impacts the health of its
occupants. In some cases, those effects are similar in scale
and scope to that of medications and procedures. The study of
these effects, Evidence-Based Design (EBD), seeks to uncover
these relationships. Our work at BPR Lab focuses on leveraging
EBD to increase the benefits and reduce the harms to people in
healthcare facilities through an understanding of causes and
effects. Fall prevention and promotion of mobility are two such
effects with far reaching personal and financial costs.
Opportunities to improve these effects through architecture
stand as an untapped vector to increase quality of life for
older Americans and stem taxpayer costs. Falls are the leading
cause of injury and among the leading causes of death among
older Americans. In 2020 over 42,000 Americans died due to
falls.\1\ Medical care related to falls of adults over 65 years
old was estimated to be $50 billion annually (2018),\2\ of
which approximately $29 billion and $9 billion came from
Medicare and Medicaid funding, respectively.\3\ In 2020, that
number had risen to $80 billion\4\ and by 2030 the cost is
expected to exceed $100 billion annually.
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\1\ Santos-Lozada AR. Trends in Deaths From Falls Among Adults Aged
65 Years or Older in the US, 1999-2020. JAMA. 2023 May 9;329(18):1605-
1607. doi: 10.1001/jama.2023.3054.
\2\ Florence CS, Bergen G, Atherly A, Burns E, Stevens J, Drake C.
Medical Costs of Fatal and Nonfatal Falls in Older Adults. J Am Geriatr
Soc. 2018 Apr;66(4):693-698. doi: 10.1111/jgs.15304. Epub 2018 Mar 7.
PMID: 29512120
\3\ National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (U.S). Cost
of Older Adult Falls. Published 2020 July 9. Accessed 2025 June 22.
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/122747
\4\ Haddad YK, Miller GF, Kakara R et al. Healthcare spending for
non-fatal falls among older adults, USA. Injury Prevention. 2023;30(4)
https://doi.org/10.1136/ip-2023-045023
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While the CDC's Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths, and
Injuries campaign (STEADI) is a well-known U.S. Government
effort to reduce falls in older adults,\5\ there are lacunas
with which the Special Committee could help. Among the
implemented recommendations made by Geriatric medical societies
is the screening of home environments for elements within that
increase the risk of falls in older adults.\6\ However, a
variety of structural factors continue to limit the practice of
basing long term care facility design decisions on empirical
data. While the knowledge is highly translatable, the
mechanisms that support and promote medical research do not
have a parallel in the architecture and construction of
healthcare facilities. Our work promotes a non-regulatory
mechanism for the incorporation of EBD.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). About STEADI.
Published 2024 April 22. Accessed 2025 June 22. https://www.cdc.gov/
steadi/about/index.html
\6\ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Check for
Safety: A Home Fall Prevention Checklist for Older Adults. Published
2017. Accessed 2025 June 22. https://www.cdc.gov/steadi/pdf/steadi-
brochure-checkforsafety-508.pdf
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As healthcare-built environments are studied more,
physicians and architects are understanding the relationship
between design elements and different health outcomes better.
While the interaction can be complex and much remains to be
known, what we do know demonstrates the personal, ethical, and
financial value of action, considering the frequency of falls
in older adults and their cost to the health system and U.S.
Government. For example, a recent study demonstrated that
simply changing lightbulbs in a long-term care home to increase
short-wavelength light during the day and decrease it overnight
decreased falls by 43% compared to a control site.\7\ As
professionals in this area, we continue to observe preventable
harms and the missed opportunities to reduce falls in older
adults. Whether in hospitals, long-term care facilities, or in
home environments, evidence-based practices for fall reduction
are inconsistently and optionally applied. We also see the
benefits of improving environments, often with additional
expertise from our colleagues in Physical and Occupational
Therapy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Grant LK, St Hilaire MA, Heller JP, Heller RA, Lockley SW,
Rahman SA. Impact of Upgraded Lighting on Falls in Care Home Residents.
J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2022;23(10):1698-1704.e2. doi:10.1016/
j.jamda.2022.06.013
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We applaud the Senate Special Committee on Aging's focus on
fall reduction in older adults. As the US population ages, this
topic will become increasingly germane to many Americans and
their loved ones. The potential cost-savings to the federal
government and for families' out-of-pocket expenses by
implementing evidence-based practices to reduce falls in older
adults is immense, in addition to the basic improvement in
older adults' quality of life.
Recommendations
We urge the following specific actions:
Congress should establish an Advisory Committee to
develop a National Falls Prevention Plan and advise CMS to
address falls prevention through home modifications and
mobility-focused interventions. The evidence base is sufficient
to support the proposed pilot program for Medicare coverage of
home modifications when recommended by a medical professional,
to decrease the rates of falls in the home.
The federal government should support ongoing research
into design-based fall reduction strategies. The federal
government has the capacity to study relationships between
health outcomes and design elements due to its access to large
and inter-related datasets. The federal government should
continue to partner with researchers in both academia and
private industry to publicly disseminate research of high
quality.
The federal government's potential investment into built
environment modifications should support interventions
recommended by medical and design professionals who demonstrate
evidence to support their ability to reduce falls. As evidence
grows, the federal government should adjust their reimbursement
based on the recommendations of medical and professionals with
relevant professional experience and minimal conflicts of
interest.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide our views on this
important topic. Our views do not represent those of our
employers but are based on the authority of our respective
professions. We look forward to working with you to reduce the
risk of older adults' falls through evidence-based design
interventions.
Sincerely,
David A. Deemer, MD, MA
Geriatric & Palliative Medicine Fellow
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
New York, NY
Diana C. Anderson, MD, M.Arch, FACHA
Geriatric Medicine Physician
Boston University School of Medicine
Boston, MA
Stowe L. Teti, MA, HEC-C
Clinical Ethicist
Inova Fairfax Medical Campus
Woodburn, VA
William J. Hercules, FAIA, FACHA, FACHE
CEO
WJH Health
Orlando, FL
[all]