Across the United States, beginning farmers are eager to be involved in growing food, raising livestock, and changing their lifestyles. Young people, military veterans, women, and farmers of color are increasingly drawn to agriculture. Not merely as a career, but as a way to restore land, build community, and feed their regions sustainably. The interest is growing, the path into agriculture as a farmer, rancher, or orchardist is steep and uneven.
Land prices are soaring, farmland is disappearing, and access to capital just isn’t there for many first-time farmers. At the same time, investors are interested in high-value crops, and development pressures are reshaping rural landscapes. This article explores the challenges beginning farmers face, the forces driving farmland costs, and the creative solutions that can help new growers break ground.
Key Points
- Farmland costs are high and getting higher
- Development pressures and urban expansion are squeezing the ag industry
- Urban pressure leads to fragmented land tracts. Large tracts are broken into smaller parcels, difficult for commodity growers, but perfect for specialty crops
- Farmer lifestyle in the 1950s included diversity. Row crops, vegetable gardens, and livestock all on one farm
- Beginning farmers are looking for that diversity with the addition of high-tech tools, measurements, and marketing
- Many specialty crops are high-value and low-cost for a beginning farmer
- It’s time to redefine what a “farm” is by ag and government tax assessors
Farmland Costs and Trends Over the Last Two Decades
Let’s put the astronomical farmland prices in historical perspective.
For beginning farmers, one of the most formidable barriers is land. Over the past two decades, farmland has become significantly more expensive and less available. In 1999, the United States had approximately 947 million acres of farmland. By 2025, that number has dropped to 876 million acres, a loss of more than 71 million acres due to development, consolidation, and land retirement programs.
The number of farms has also declined—from 2.17 million in 1999 to just over 2 million in 2025, reflecting a trend toward larger, consolidated operations. This shift means fewer opportunities for small-scale and beginning farmers to enter the field.
Meanwhile, the average value of cropland has surged. In 2005, cropland averaged $1,860 per acre. By 2025, it reached $5,830 per acre, a 213% increase. In high-demand regions like California’s Central Valley or Oregon’s Willamette Valley, prices can exceed $10,000 to $15,000 per acre, especially for irrigated or development-adjacent parcels.
This upward pressure on land prices is not just a matter of inflation. That surge is a reflection of deeper structural changes in agriculture, land use, and investment behavior.
What the Chart Shows
- Blue Line: Number of farms in the U.S. steadily declined from 2.17 million in 1999 to just over 2 million in 2025, reflecting consolidation and barriers for new farmers.
- Green Line: Average cropland value surged from $1,860 per acre in 2005 to $5,830 in 2025, a 213% increase.
- Dual Y-Axes: Left axis tracks farm count; right axis tracks cropland value per acre.
- Pink Annotation: Highlights the 2024 USDA data point, anchoring the chart in verified numbers
Developer Pressures and Urban Expansion on the Ag Industry
One of the most significant forces driving up farmland prices is the pressure from real estate development. As cities expand outward, farmland near urban centers becomes increasingly attractive—not for agriculture, but for housing, commercial use, and infrastructure. What we’ve come to recognize as “urban sprawl” is now suburban and “lifestyle farmers,” or, as many farmers say, hobby farms. (more on this later) This shift transforms farmland into speculative real estate, often pricing out beginning farmers.
Between 2001 and 2016, the U.S. lost over 11 million acres of farmland to development, according to the American Farmland Trust. In states like Oregon and California, farmland near cities like Portland, Sacramento, and San Diego is often valued more for its zoning potential than the quality of its soil. In some cases, land that would sell for $5,000 per acre as agricultural property can jump to $50,000 or more per acre once rezoned for residential or mixed-use development.
This urban pressure also leads to fragmentation. Large tracts of farmland are broken into smaller parcels, making them less viable for commercial agriculture but more appealing to developers and lifestyle buyers. For beginning farmers, this means fewer affordable options and more competition from non-agricultural interests.
But wait a minute…
Don’t farmers farm for the lifestyle…?
As conventional farms get larger, it isn’t about the lifestyle as much as it’s about profit margins, ROIs. Is it a bad thing that those large tracts are broken up into farms the size our great-grandparents farmed? (yep, we’ll be coming back to this)
The Farmer Lifestyle - Then and Now
Pre-1939 (before WW II), if you lived on a farm, you helped out on the farm, and you worked hard. It was assumed the kids would work alongside their parents. Almost all work was manual or animal-powered. The limiting factors for a successful outcome were weather and soil.
Before WW II, about 23% of Americans lived on farms, and ag employed over 20% of the labor force. Statistics: Trends in American Farming | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Just as today, prices fluctuated wildly, and droughts, pests, and floods made for unpredictable incomes. But not political events halfway around the world.
Farming really was a family affair. Limited technology and high rural populations meant there were neighbors who knew each other. Farming was tough; there were accidents, but communities did come together to help each other out.
On the flip side, there was no crop insurance. But it wasn’t needed because most farms had high crop diversity, livestock, and sold to local markets.
Fast forward to 2025:
Technology rules the day. Big tractors guided by GPS, drones, automated irrigation, and lots of synthetic chemicals define a farm. Precision ag helps to optimize yield and reduce waste.
Supply chains are now global, not regional. And especially rarely local. Weather still plays a role in farming success, but it’s now about water scarcity and access to irrigation. The fluctuations in markets are now across the globe. Political and social upheavals in a country halfway around the world affect the export/import markets.
Precision and conventional ag practices have degraded the soil so that the 4% – 6% soil organic matter common in the 1930s has decreased to 1% – 3%. That’s a decrease of 25% to 50% of soil organic matter in less than a century.
The farmer lifestyle? It’s corporate when it involves farms that are 1000s or 10s of thousands of acres. In 2025, less than 2% of Americans work in agriculture. Farms are fewer and much bigger.
The majority of farms are still categorized as “family farms,” but they’re nothing like the family farm pre – WW II. The farm that many of our grandparents owned or grew up on. And almost all today’s family farms subsist on at least one family member working outside the home to provide a stable income.
The Farmer Lifestyle Beginning Farmers Aspire To
Many younger farmers see farming as a mission-driven lifestyle, not just a business. They often include off-farm income and digital entrepreneurship, with a more diverse farmstead.
Agroforestry, agritourism, and value-added products are common for younger farmers who don’t see monocrops as a predictable or sustainable revenue stream. The tech-savvy Millennials and Gen Zers assume the internet and social media are sales tools for their production.
They often use direct-to-consumer sales as the most profitable outlets. The consumer isn’t some far-off buyer of farm products that many hands have touched. The consumer is local or regional. Often, producers and consumers know each other from agritourism events, community outreach, or farmers’ markets.
The lifestyle of younger farmers is much like that of the pre-WW II farmers, except with high tech. Digital tools are used for crop planning, marketing, and financial tracking. No more spreadsheets.
But does that mean a young farmer has no hope of success in today’s “be big or be gone” agriculture? There is plenty of success in small niche farming.
Beginning Farmers Don’t Need Big Acreage for Great ROI
It means farms look different. Monocrops aren’t the farms of the future. Diversity is the name of the farming success game. And we’re talking profits of $10,000 – $200,000 per acre.
That sounds preposterous. But it’s all about leveraging the land you have with the highest profit-margin crops and selling to local and high-end markets. You don’t make money selling wholesale. And you don’t make money with lots of inputs.
Diversity is the driver of sales, and simplicity keeps costs down for higher profits. There are many real-world examples of successful small farms.
- Les Jardin de la Grelinette, Jean-Martin Fortier, Quebec, Canada
- 1.5 acres
- Microgreens, salad greens, herbs, high-value crops
- Sells directly to restaurants, farmers’ markets, and CSA
- Biointensive farming methods
- Singing Frogs Farm – Sebastopol, CA
- <3 acres, >$100,000/acre annually
- Salad greens, herbs, root vegetables
- Sells directly to restaurants, farmers’ markets, CSA
- No-till, high compost input, intensive planting
- Frith Farm – Scarborough, Maine
- <5 acres cultivated >$100,000/acre annually
- Salad greens, herbs, flowers, vegetables
- Sells to restaurants, has a farm stand, CSA
- No-till, cover cropping, composting, regenerative
And many more small farms are highly profitable. They are hard work and require a more extensive knowledge of plant varieties. Much of the work is manual. But as small farming emerges, more tools to make the work easier are being developed.
Tips for Success on Small Acreage
- Use biointensive or regenerative methods: Maximize yield per square foot with close spacing and soil health.
- Sell direct-to-consumer: Farmers markets, CSAs, and online platforms offer better margins than wholesale.
- Add value: Turn herbs into teas, mushrooms into grow kits, or flowers into arrangements.
- Diversify income: Combine crops with agritourism, workshops, or value-added products.
- Add livestock: sheep, goats, chickens, and cattle all add to the fertility of a small farm. Both with manure and with their movement over the ground.
Getting a premium on your production makes all the difference when you’re a beginning farmer. As you develop your base, expand your offerings to include more affordable crops. This increases your base and makes you more resilient to market changes.
Can We Call These Specialty Crop Beginning Farmers “Hobby Farmers?”
Large commodity growers often think so. And so do many jurisdictions. According to the USDA, there isn’t a size limit on what constitutes a farm, but there is a revenue base. If a farm produces, or is capable of producing, at least $1,000 of agricultural products per year, it’s a farm.
Local and regional governmental authorities can impose additional restrictions on a farm. Often, zoning regulations can de-farm a property based on size. For example, in Michigan, there is no state minimum acreage or income required to be a farm, but…
…Local assessors may apply additional criteria, such as minimal acreage (often 5 acres or more), to determine zoning. If your farm operation, even if highly profitable, is under 5 acres, it could be rezoned as residential. Your taxes would skyrocket.
This has happened to specialty crop growers in Iowa, California, and Michigan. The minimum size acreage for agricultural zoning ranges from 5-10 acres all the way to >320 acres, depending on what part of the country you’re in.
The impact on beginning farmers is huge. Young farmers see a diversified revenue stream as optimal. Their lifestyle philosophy clashes with governmental regulations. Even long-time specialty crop farmers who farm fewer than 5 acres are being hit with rezoning based on how they market their property or what designation they use to file their taxes (farmer). Assessors also look at what other ways the property is being used.
The assessment system hasn’t caught up to modern-day farming.
There’s High Profit in Niche Farming
In an era defined by climate volatility, economic uncertainty, and shifting consumer values, small niche market farms offer a resilient, regenerative, and community-rooted alternative to the industrial commodity model.
Commodity farms are built on scale, monoculture, and global supply chains. These systems are increasingly brittle. They rely on heavy inputs, distant markets, and razor-thin margins, leaving farmers vulnerable to price shocks, trade disruptions, and political upheavals, while degrading ecosystems.
By contrast, small niche farms thrive on diversity, agility, and direct relationships. They grow high-value crops like microgreens, herbs, heirloom vegetables, and specialty fruits. Their crops are tailored to local tastes and sold directly to consumers, chefs, and co-ops. This model:
- Builds soil health through biointensive and regenerative practices
- Captures more value by cutting out middlemen
- Fosters innovation in crop selection, marketing, and land use
- Connects communities to their food and farmers
- Adapts quickly to changing markets and climate conditions
These farms aren’t just surviving, they’re shaping the future. From rooftop gardens in cities to 5+ acre plots in rural towns, they’re proving that profitability, sustainability, and food sovereignty can coexist.
The next generation of farmers isn’t chasing scale; they’re cultivating purpose. And that’s why small niche farms aren’t just the future of agriculture, they’re the future of how we nourish ourselves, our communities, and our planet.
Commodity crops are not the future of farming. Input costs are too high, prices for crops are too low, and markets are dwindling. What are we going to do with all that corn ethanol as more people opt for hybrid and electric cars and trucks?
Isn’t it time to redefine what a “farm” is for a new generation? It’s time to disrupt the status quo and embrace the satisfying lifestyle we’ve come to associate with farming. It’s not a romantic version of farming, but a version of farming that is the reality for a regenerative world. Merge the wisdom of our elders with the technology and marketing channels native to a new generation of farmers. Regenerate our soils.
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