Originally published on March 15, 2021 9:17 am
Plenty of younger people are eager to build careers in farming, but more land up for grabs won’t necessarily make it easier to get started. Access to land and capital are two of the biggest hurdles facing first-generation farmers today, and some say they face an extra barrier to both — student loan debt.
With lawmakers and President Biden mulling the merits of canceling some debt, farmers and advocates say loan forgiveness could make it easier for millennial farmers to build their businesses.
“We know like good farmland is in rural areas, but there are not good jobs that can pay for all the student debt that you have in rural communities,” says Vanessa Garcia Polanco, a federal policy associate with the National Young Farmers Coalition.