Iowa's average farmer is almost 60. The USDA just killed a program to fix that

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Iowa's average farmer is nearly 60 years. That's not a new problem. It's been creeping up for decades and for years people have been asking, "Where will the [music] next generation of farmers come from?" The USDA actually had an answer to this problem and then it pulled the rug out from underneath it. Hear me out. The USDA's answer was called the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program, the ILA, and it funded 50 projects across the country designed to bring new and underserved farmers into the profession. Two of those projects were right here in Iowa.

[00:00:34]One program was run right here out of the Johnson County Historic Poor Farm in Iowa City. Lorenzio Rogers is 32 years old. She didn't grow up on a farm.

[00:00:43]>> I didn't come from a farming family. Um I've wanted to be a farmer since my early 20s, but kind of convinced myself I I didn't have the resources or the networks, so kind of talked myself out of that and did some other things for about a decade.

[00:00:57]>> She left a full-time job with a comfortable wage this fellowship. It took her years to get here. She had her plot picked out, 35 by 150 ft. She was going to grow broccolini and green beans. She'd already drawn up the beginnings of a business plan and the day before the funding was cut, she and another fellow working on the farm had just turned the soil. Program lasted less than 3 weeks in total. Iowa Valley RC&D, the nonprofit running the fellowship, got a letter on March 24th explaining that funding would end March 27th. That's 3 days notice on a 5-year [music] grant. Farm operations manager Malek Salisbury found out right after finishing greenhouse management class with the fellows.

[00:01:40]>> And was about to take them on a tour.

[00:01:42]My boss and our executive director pulled me aside and they're like, "Hey, the funding got cut and yeah, it was kind of heartbreaking to get that."

[00:01:52]>> The USDA's justification, the program promoted DEI. [music] It lacked, quote meritocracy and color blindness. They called it quote an egregious misuse of dollars and pointed to purchases by other grantees like a $20,000 barbecue smoker as proof of the abuse. Iowa Valley did not buy that smoker, but they did fight back. They submitted an appeal to the USDA's National Appeals Division. [music] It was rejected and they basically said they didn't need a reason. Here's what Laurencia told me about the opportunity cost because she'd already given up her old job.

[00:02:24]>> I've already reached out to them and their needs have been filled. It puts me in a hard predicament with some slimmer pickings than I had appreciate, but just to you know, have some sort of stability and a parent to a 6-year-old girl, so it it's important that I have that. Iowa Farming Future is a real problem. It doesn't belong to one party. Farmers across the state, red counties, blue [music] counties are watching their kids leave and wondering who's going to work the land. The USDA had a program trying to answer that question. [music] It ran for just 18 days. Iowa Valley says it's not giving up. They're actively working to secure funding to relaunch the program, but right now the federal program designed to bring the next generation of Iowa farmers into the profession got a 3-days [music] notice, one rejected appeal, and a form letter about priorities. Laurencia has landed on her feet. She found a job at another farm and she still has a plot here at the Poor Farm to try to get a small business started. The fellowship officially runs through May 29th. She told me her next steps are quote just as up in the air as the program. For Iowa Starting Line, I'm Zachary Oren Smith.