Land, equipment and technology add up to a hefty startup cost for young farmers hoping to branch out on their own

Tyler Powell, 33, says he's been a farmer ever since he could walk, but he first raised his own crop in 2003 on the family farm in LaCenter, Kentucky. He was 22 at the time.

"On this plot of land, there was my dad, my granddad and my great-granddad," he says. "So that makes me fourth-generation."

It's the classic agricultural yarn, illustrating pastoral family values and a stark reality: that few farmers enter the field, so to speak, without having been born into it.

"You can't just decide one day that you want to be a farmer and go out and start farming a thousand acres," Powell says. "It just doesn't work like that."

To do so would mean astronomical startup costs. Good farming land doesn't come cheap; if it's for sale at all, it often runs tens of thousands of dollars per acre, multiplied by hundreds of acres. For young prospective farmers, inheritance is the only feasible option.

Mark Holzum, salesman at Heuer Sons Implement Company Inc. in Cape Girardeau, says the young farmers he sees are working in conjunction with their parents or grandparents.

"A young person could not do it, and a young person would not do it," he says. "Because a young person with a million dollars wouldn't go into farming."

John A. Heuer, president of Heuer Sons, says the dizzying rate at which agricultural technology systems are advancing only exacerbates the grind on farmers, especially inexperienced ones.

"With all the new guidance systems we're seeing now, I send my technicians to school and when they get back, they're already behind," he says. "It's not like it used to be. Computers have changed the industry."

Powell has embraced the change, saying the new technology lets him be more precise when administering chemicals, fertilizer and seed.

"We don't skip or overlap and we're able to keep better records and make better management decisions," he says.

The new systems have allowed for more efficient operations, but in doing so have ramped up competition to the point where farms below a certain size and yield are becoming less and less sustainable.

Powell says farmers are either forced to expand or support their families with another job and be part-time farmers. He raises winter wheat during the winter months and says growing year-round is the only way to survive in the industry.

"You have to be big enough to stay competitive," he says.

But he also explains how that type of expansion can open a farm up to risk.

"It wouldn't take that much of a bad crop to get to the point where you couldn't sustain it anymore," he says.

Drew Sherman, insurance agent at W.E. Walker Lakenan LLC, says farming is just like any other industry: things go wrong.

"Maybe it's a windstorm that damages a tractor or maybe it's crop insurance," he says. "It's not uncommon to have a claim every three years, maybe less. It depends on the size of the farm."

Sherman also says farmers often absorb a loss instead of filing an insurance claim so they don't risk losing eligibility for insurance. Inexperienced farmers are often eligible for coverage, but aren't going to get as good of a rate as someone with a bigger account and 20 years in the business.

"It's a tough business to get into on your own," he says.

While it seems to be getting harder and harder to start a farm from scratch, young farmers will continue to enter the business the way their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents did: by tending the family farm.

Even with the pitfalls inherent in agriculture, Sherman says he's still optimistic about young farmers' prospects.

"It requires a lot of capital to cover the rising input costs," he says. "But there are programs and tax incentives available to help you once you have land."