Submitted photo n a family photo, Joy Lanoue holds up an ear of corn. Joy’s father Paul Lanoue said for many farm families, family time is often work time together. Lanoue and Allen Deutz recently spoke about the trends facing the agriculture industry at a Marshall Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

MARSHALL — Life is busy for Allen Deutz and Paul Lanoue — they’re both balancing family farms with work as educators. But they’re not alone in having to take on the balancing act.

“I don’t think we’re really that unique,” Deutz said. As changes in the agriculture industry have put a squeeze on mid-size and smaller farms, many younger farmers are taking on more than one career.

Lanoue and Deutz recently talked about some of the current trends and changes in farm life at an Agribusiness Luncheon hosted by the Marshall Area Chamber of Commerce. In addition to farming, Lanoue is Dean of Ag, Business, Energy and Transportation at Minnesota West Community and Technical College, and Deutz is an agribusiness economics instructor at South Dakota State University.

“There’s been a big change in agriculture in the past 50 years,” said Deutz. “Basically, what we’ve seen is the bigger farms are becoming larger,” while the number of farms in the country is roughly the same.

According to the 2017 Ag Census, around 220,000 farms — just 11% of the farms in the U.S. — produced 90% of agricultural sales, Deutz said. There are also a large number of very small farms that don’t produce much in sales.

“Everyone in the middle is getting squeezed out,” Deutz said. “That’s why we see a lot of farmers have a second job.”

The income from a second job is often needed to help farmers pay for major expenses like loans, Lanoue said. Jobs off the farm are also a way to get health insurance coverage, he said.

Around one-third of Lyon County farmers have a second job, Deutz said.

Farmers are also aging, Deutz said. In 2017, the average age of farmers in the U.S. was 57. In Lyon County, the average was 54, but only 1% of farmers were younger than 25, Deutz said. More than half of Lyon County farmers were older than 55, and 10% were older than 75.

And while farmers are aging, industry changes like advances in technology have made it possible for farmers to keep working for a longer time, Lanoue said.

Deutz said farmers’ net income has been on a downturn for the last five or six years, although net incomes were up over the past year.

“That has to do with government payments,” he said. “Once that settles back down, we’ll probably be where we were.” Over the past five or six years, farmers have seen low returns on equity and low returns on assets.

Deutz said he thought the downturn in net farming income has been connected to years of very low interest rates. Low interest rates give farmers the ability to pay more to purchase assets, which leads to higher asset values.

The high cost of farming assets like equipment also creates barriers for young farmers to get into the industry, Deutz said.

Deutz said he thought the trend of farm consolidation will probably continue into the future. It’s concerning because large landowners hold a lot of power, and can’t be elected out, he said. Lanoue said it will be important for young farmers to have opportunities that will be profitable and make the most of their time.

It isn’t easy to balance a full-time job like farming with other professional careers. Lanoue and Deutz told stories of having to put a meeting on hold to help with the birth of a calf, or fixing fences while on a Zoom call.

“Family time in our family often means work time,” Lanoue said.

In spite of the challenges, Lanoue said he is in farming and ag education partly to support the local community and reach out to people about farming. Many families today are at least three generations removed from farming, and there’s a lot of inaccurate information about agriculture out there, he said.

“It’s because of these issues I’m invested in the community,” Lanoue said. “I want our community to survive and thrive.”