Farmers 65 and older made up about 41% of Macon County's agricultural producers in the most recent Census of Agriculture, up from 35% five years earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The number of producers 65 and older rose 37%, from 677 in 2017 to 928 in 2022, according to county profiles published by the department's National Agricultural Statistics Service. The county's total number of producers rose 18% over the same five years, to 2,282.
The census counts up to four producers on each farm, so the figures count people who help run farms, not farms themselves. The census is taken every five years, and the 2022 count is the latest available.
Among age groups, the oldest grew fastest, but Macon County also added younger and newer farmers. Producers the census classifies as new and beginning farmers rose from 496 to 747, about a third of the county's producers in 2022. Producers under 35 rose from 164 to 185, about 8% of the total. Producers ages 35 to 64 rose 7%, to 1,169.
Macon County also bucked a regional slide in farm numbers. The county had 1,258 farms in 2022, up 8% from 1,163 in 2017, and 432,256 acres in farms, up 10%, according to the census.
Of the seven counties that border Macon, only Randolph also gained farms, rising from 783 to 791. The other six lost farms. Knox County fell 15%, from 637 to 539, and Monroe County fell 13%, from 978 to 846.
The share of producers 65 and older rose in all seven neighboring counties. Here are the 2022 shares, with 2017 in parentheses, according to the census profiles:
- Adair: 39.7% (35.3%)
- Chariton: 43.2% (37.4%)
- Knox: 38.4% (35.8%)
- Linn: 37.2% (35.5%)
- Macon: 40.7% (35.0%)
- Monroe: 45.3% (36.3%)
- Randolph: 43.5% (33.7%)
- Shelby: 40.6% (36.6%)
Monroe had the highest share of producers 65 and older among the eight counties and Linn the lowest. Randolph showed the biggest five-year jump, nearly 10 percentage points.
Macon County's figure is close to the picture University of Missouri Extension has described. In a February column, MU Extension agricultural business specialists Wesley Tucker, Denice Ferguson, and Mary Sobba, writing with Robert Jones, MU Extension's director of integrated marketing communications, wrote that census data show farmers 65 and older "are the fastest-growing segment of the farm population, now representing nearly 40% of producers."
The column said an estimated 70% of U.S. farmland will change hands in the next 20 years and that land values have risen faster than farm income.
"In many cases, land no longer generates enough cash flow for a beginning farmer to purchase it outright, even when part of the operation is inherited," the specialists wrote.
Sobba and Tucker were asked by email Friday morning what the aging trend means for Macon County farm families and about succession planning. Chariton Media Group did not receive a response in time for publication.