YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – As younger generations lose interest in agriculture, retiring farmers have options other than keeping the farm in the family.
Recently, 650 acres in Columbiana County sold for $8.33 million.
Terry Coyne, executive vice chairman of the Cleveland office of Newmark, a commercial real estate firm, announced the deal on a LinkedIn post. Farmland, vacant parcels and other properties in the Summitville and Kensington areas of the county, once owned by Summitcrest Holdings LLC, were purchased by Whitetail Land Acquisition LLC for about $12,800 per acre in the transaction.
Previously part of a proposed solar farm that wasn’t approved, the Summitcrest Holdings property is connected through court records to Fred Johnson. Whitetail Land Acquisition LLC is located in Carroll County and specializes in agricultural and timber properties. Whitetail buys and sells properties for investment.
While some of the property may remain agricultural, development is also a possibility, according to Coyne.
“Ohio as a state is a very hot state for people to acquire land for industrial use, for data center use,” Coyne says of the current real estate market.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Ohio farm real estate value was $8,760 per acre in 2024, up 9% from 2023.
“Farms that used to go for $5,000 per acre are now going for $12,000 per acre. And that’s farmland, not utility served sites that aren’t even in the path of progress,” Coyne says. “There are institutional investors who will buy farms as an investment.”
From a farming standpoint, costs are increasing, which Coyne says should mean the cost of the land is decreasing. But that is not the case.
“We track these sales and we see it everywhere,” Coyne says. “The sale prices for farms are moving up at a faster pace than I have seen in my career… It strikes me that it’s got to be the interest by investors who are not fundamental farmers. They must just think it’s a good asset class. And you can see the richest guys in the world are buying up farms.”
Coyne says as he sees it, the owners, especially of larger parcels of farm land, have two choices – sell it to their children or sell it to the highest bidder.
Coyne owns 700 acres of farmland south of Columbus, which he bought as an industrial development investment, but for now, he is renting it to tenants, a father and son who are farming the property. The son uses artificial intelligence tools to boost the farm’s efficiency, measuring, for instance, the moisture levels and growth outcomes in specific areas.
As farm productivity increases though, the need for farmland decreases. Demand for property for data centers, solar panels to power them, other industrial uses and housing, however, is increasing.
FEWER FARMS
Across the country, the number of farms decreased to 1.88 million in 2024, down 8% from 2017, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. And farm property owners are aging. The average farmer is 58.1 years old, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture, which is 0.6 years older than the average in 2017 and 9.0 older than 1945. Today, 40% of farmers are 65 or older.
The 2024 Tenure, Ownership and Transition of Agricultural Land, TOTAL, survey through the USDA reported less than 5% of owned farmland is expected to be transitioned to another through sale or gift over the next five years and 10% is in a trust or will be placed in one during the same period. About 15% will be part of a will.
TOUGH CONVERSATIONS
The future of a family farm may pose difficult discussions, says Haley Shoemaker, Ohio State University Extension agriculture and natural resources educator for Columbiana and Mahoning counties. Besides recognizing one’s own mortality, there are a lot of moving parts to agricultural succession planning.
“Farms are a little more complex than I have a house and a car and maybe a quarter acre of land,” Shoemaker says. “We’re talking you have the farmhouse. You potentially have workers’ houses. You potentially have other families living on the farm and houses, personal vehicles, farm vehicles, equipment, facilities, the land, the livestock and all the other assets that are part of that business.”
Additionally, one generation may have a different idea from the next about what will happen to the family farm. Shoemaker says some people can be more open about what they are thinking if they write it down.
“What we love to see is when we get a couple family members there, especially maybe if there’s a senior generation member and junior generation member,” Shoemaker says. “They actually get workbooks to fill out. The senior generation fills out theirs on their own, the junior generation does the same and then they flip-flop.”
By reading what the other generation wrote, each can see common ground vs. differences.
Another layer to the conversation is when a prior generation left behind broad or vague expectations and the current generation is struggling to determine how to implement them.
Shoemaker notes there are different ways to divide a farm and extension staff tries to help farmers find practical solutions.
“There’s a lot of situations where splitting it equally is not the same as splitting it equitably,” Shoemaker says. “So that’s one of the concepts we try to drive home. You don’t have to be equal. The goal should be more equitable.”
There are also experts through the OSU Extension who travel the state providing classes in the winter when farmers have more time in their schedules.
Robert E. Moore, an attorney with the agricultural and resource law program, is one of the specialists Shoemaker invites to the area every few years to lead a seminar to help local farm families get their succession plans in order.
But Moore says the Ohio Farm Resolution Services meetings are more about getting farm families to determine their own goals and give them ideas how to develop a plan, before pointing them toward an attorney who can help them execute their plan.
Moore admits there are not many attorneys who focus on agricultural law and estate planning. A farmer himself, Moore says he has a unique perspective.
“For farm families, usually the land is the most important asset,” he says. “It’s usually the most valuable asset they own. It’s the hardest asset to replace and also there’s family heritage with it.”
In some cases, Moore says farmland has been in the family for five or even six generations, which means a big focus for that farmer could be how to keep the farm in the family.
And what happens when the next generation has no interest in farming, but the farmer still wants to see the land preserved for agricultural use? Shoemaker says not every farm transition plan includes biological family members. In some cases an employee who worked at the farm for 25 or 30 years and wants to run it when the farmer retires is a great option.
Another is leasing.
“Even if there’s not someone to take over the farm, the farm still has a lot of economic benefit,” Moore says. “There’s usually other farmers in the area that will rent it… and it’s a great source of income for future generations.”
Owners of farmland throughout the midwest region are more likely to lease their land than those in any area of the country, according to the TOTAL survey. There are nearly 800,000 landlords across the midwest and it accounts for 38% of all landlords and nearly 74 million acres.
There are more than 20 million acres rented in the Atlantic region, which includes Pennsylvania.
There are 2.1 million landlords of agricultural land across the country, according to the survey.
Another option could be finding a real estate firm that specializes in marketing farmland and wooded properties for hunting and similar uses. These companies work with the family who can dictate whether the property is to be sold in one piece or smaller parcels.
Additionally, Moore says he has seen farm transition plans in Eastern Ohio where the non-farming heirs receive the mineral rights and the farming family member receives the land, livestock and equipment. Fracking for natural gas for instance has made those mineral rights a potential windfall for families.
Shoemaker notes while a family farm may not support the next generation with its multiple heirs, there are farm families that find ways to make the finances work. Maybe the spouse works in a career off the farm to bring in additional income or the farming is completed part-time after other jobs are done for the day. Or she suggests the operation can be expanded or integrated with other enterprises.
Agritourism has become popular, for instance, as farmers grow items for a local farm market or draw visitors to attend events throughout the year.
“There can be a lot of unique takes on a farm estate plan,” Shoemaker says. “It doesn’t have to follow any one direction or path.”
