For five generations, Keith Peters’ family farmed around Rickenbacker International Airport in Lockbourne, Ohio. Then bulldozers arrived.
“The property around that farm was sold for warehousing. There aren’t any farmers living there anymore,” said Peters, now 65. Over decades, he has watched development “steal the community” of his childhood.
As modern industry pushes into agricultural areas, farmers are losing land and facing added stressors such as busier roads, changing culture and non-ag neighbors who don’t understand farming.
Multigenerational farming families are caught between preserving legacy and accepting lucrative buyouts that could fund larger operations elsewhere. Even then, there’s no guarantee it won’t happen again because tech-driven development, such as data centers and solar, is becoming detached from population centers.
Today’s tech-driven development isn’t just pressuring farms adjacent to population centers. When developers throw outrageous monetary sums at farmland, it’s tempting to take the money and run. And across the country, countless farm families have made that choice as urban sprawl spirals outward from city centers.
When those sales go through, they can have a domino effect: Payouts from the deal often get funneled via 1031 tax-deferred exchanges into farming parcels three, four or 10 times larger in some distant neighborhood where the farmer sets up new operations. That, in turn, puts pressure on local land values and can foster resentment with new neighboring farmers.
For some farmers, fighting for land represents legacy. But taking a big payout is a no-brainer for others who want to set up their children for future farm success.
“If you’re 40, you might reason, ‘I can quadruple or quintuple my land ownership. Yeah, I’ll do this,’ ” said Pat Karst, vice president at Indiana-based Halderman Real Estate and Farm Management.
When that happens, it can create conflicts with other farmers. Several farmers who sold land for development spoke with Farm Progress on background, but they were not willing to comment on the record, fearing repercussions.
As a farm kid, Ohio farmer Ray Noecker recalled moving cows across roads. Back then, drivers knew how to “wander through a herd” with their vehicles. It wasn’t a big deal.
“Now, they stop, they get out of the car, they get their kids out of the car and take pictures. They say, ‘That’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen,’ ” Noecker said. “And I’m like, ‘Well, that’s what we do every day.’
“I’m not against development. I’m not against people having a place to live. But I think we need to be smarter about how we do it. I think we need to be smarter about where we do it.”
In any rural neighborhood undergoing this change today, the disappearing farm-centric culture can spark conflict as non-ag neighbors move in.
It’s a clash that Doug Dawson, 66, a third-generation Delaware County, Ohio, row crop and hog farmer, understands well. Dawson farms his own 700 acres and rents another 1,300, while simultaneously operating a farrow-to-finish hog operation with about 1,400 sows. He markets about 40,000 pigs annually to Tyson, IPC and United Producers.
It’s dirty, smelly work. Neighbors complain. This past July 4, for example, he was combining wheat ahead of a storm when a driver waved him down.
“He introduced himself and said, ‘Well, I’m so and so. I bought that house back there. I just want to let you know your dust has ruined my Fourth of July party,’ ” Dawson recalled. “I said, ‘Sir, was that wheat field there in March when you moved in? You do know that you moved into a farming community, right? I didn’t move my farm into your housing development.’ ”
For Dawson, ruffled feathers are nothing new. But there’s nothing satisfying about putting a city dweller in his place.
“Our days here in the livestock business are numbered,” he said. “We do not own the 100 acres right across the road. Pretty sure it got sold to a developer about two months ago.”
For those facing development pressure, navigating these changes can be as complex emotionally as it is financially. Matt Bennett, an Illinois farmer and founder of AgMarket.Net, advises his farmer-clients that every situation is unique. He has neighbors who lease 800 acres to solar developers for $1,000 to $1,200 each. He’s turned down $4,000 per acre with annual escalation rates up to 2.5% for a farm that’s strategically located two blocks from a substation.
“I’ve heard from probably every solar company in the country. I’ve been inundated with contacts,” he said. “If a project has high profitability baked into it, I’d consider selling the farm and buying two to three times the acreage [elsewhere]. In certain situations, it makes a lot of sense. For us personally, they happen to be interested in our best farm. But for poor-quality ground? It would be a little more attractive.”
In his view, development is a tool, nothing more. Many of the farmers Bennett speaks with who are thinking about renting don’t have a succession plan. Lease agreements can put cash in their pockets without losing property. And after a solar lease contract is up, the land can return to full-time agricultural production.