On Oct. 12, National Farmers’ Day, Americans honor the hardworking people who keep the world fed and clothed.

But the farming labor force has a problem: It’s aging rapidly.

The average American farmer is 57 and a half years old, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s up sharply from 1978, when the figure was just a smidge over 50.

As researchers who study well-being in rural areas, we wanted to understand this trend and its implications. So we dug into the data.

Amber waves of graying

We found that the average age of farmers was fairly consistent across the country, even though the general population’s age varies quite a bit from place to place.

For example, the average Maine farmer is just a few months older than the average farmer in Utah, even though the average Maine resident is more than a decade older than the average Utahn.

To be fair, we did find some local differences. For example, in New York County – better known as Manhattan – the average farmer is just north of 31. Next door in Hudson County, New Jersey, the average farmer is more than 72.

On the whole, though, America’s farming workforce is getting older. If the country doesn’t recruit new farmers or adapt to having fewer, older ones, it could put the nation’s food supply at risk. Before panicking, though, it’s worth asking: Why is this happening?

A tough field to break into

To start, there are real barriers to entry for young people – at least those who weren’t born into multigenerational farming families. It takes money to buy the land, equipment and other stuff you need to run a farm, and younger people have less wealth than older ones.

Young people born into family farms may have fewer opportunities to take them over due to consolidation in agriculture. And those who do have the chance may not seize it, since they often report that rural life is more challenging than living in a city or suburb.

The overall stress of the agriculture industry is also a concern: Farmers are often at the mercy of weather, supply shortages, volatile markets and other factors entirely out of their control.

In addition to understanding why fewer younger people want to go into agriculture, it’s important to consider aging farmers’ needs. Without younger people to leave the work to, farmers are left with intense labor — physically and mentally – to accomplish, on top of the ordinary challenges of aging.

In other words, the U.S. needs to increase opportunities for younger farmers while also supporting farmers as they age.

Opportunities to help

The USDA already has programs to aid new farmers, as well as farmers of color and female farmers, and those who operate small farms. Expanding these programs’ reach and impact could help bring new talent into the field.

Congress could do just that when it reauthorizes the farm bill – a package of laws covering a wide range of food – and agriculture-related programs that get passed roughly every five years.

The farm bill also includes nutrition aid and funds telehealth and training and educational outreach for farmers, all of which could help meet the needs of young and aging farmers alike. Notably, the Cooperative Extension Service offers programs that range from 4-H and youth development, including introduction to agriculture, to providing on-site technical help.

Congress was supposed to reauthorize the farm bill by Sept. 30, 2023, but it missed that deadline. It now faces a new deadline of Dec. 31, but due to dysfunction in the House of Representatives, many expect the process to drag on into 2024.

Also in 2024, the USDA will release its next Census of Agriculture, giving researchers new insight into America’s farming workforce. We expect it will show that the average age of U.S. farmers has reached a new all-time high.

If you believe otherwise – well, we wouldn’t bet the farm.

David R. Buys receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the National Institutes of Health.

As Director of the Southern Rural Development Center, one of the nation's four Regional Rural Development Centers (RRDCs) focused on enhancing capacity in research and Extension among Land-Grant Universities, John J. Green is involved in projects funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Relevant to this topic are base funding support for RRDCs and the Agricultural and Food Research Initiative Competitive Program grant 2021-67023-34425 and his participation in the Rural Population Research Network (W5001). He also receives support as part of the Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging funded by the National Institute on Aging grant R24-AG065159. The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of these funders.

As an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Science at Mississippi State University, Mary Nelson Robertson is involved in projects supported by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Rural Health and Safety Education Grant No. 2020-46100-32841, Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Rural Opioids Technical Assistance (ROTA) Grant No. 5H79TI083275-02, and USDA NIFA Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN): Southern Region Grant No. 2020-70028-32730 from the University of Tennessee Extension Service, and USDA NIFA FRSAN: State Department of Agriculture Grant No. 2021-70035-35566 from Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce.

Many of the world’s largest public and private companies will soon be required to track and report almost all of their greenhouse gas emissions if they do business in California – including emissions from their supply chains, business travel, employees’ commutes and the way customers use their products.

That means oil and gas companies like Chevron will likely have to account for emissions from vehicles that use their gasoline, and Apple will have to account for materials that go into iPhones.

It’s a huge leap from current federal and state reporting requirements, which require reporting of only certain emissions from companies’ direct operations. And it will have global ramifications.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two new rules into law on Oct. 7, 2023. Under the new Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, U.S.- companies with annual revenues of US$1 billion or more will have to report both their direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2026 and 2027. The California Chamber of Commerce opposed the regulation, arguing it would increase companies’ costs. But more than a dozen major corporations endorsed the rule, including Microsoft, Apple, Salesforce and Patagonia.

The second law, the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act, requires companies generating $500 million or more to report their financial risks related to climate change and their plans for risk mitigation.

As a professor of economics and public policy, I study corporate environmental behavior and public policy, including whether disclosure laws like these work to reduce emissions. I believe California’s new rules represent a significant step toward mainstreaming corporate climate disclosures and potentially meaningful corporate climate actions.

Many big corporations are already reporting

Most of the companies covered by California’s climate disclosure rules are multinational corporations. They include technology companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft; giant retailers like Walmart and Costco; and oil and gas companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron.

Many of these large corporations have been preparing for mandatory disclosure rules for several years.

Close to two-thirds of the companies listed in the S&P 500 index voluntarily report to CDP, formerly called the Carbon Disclosure Project. CDP is a nonprofit that surveys companies on behalf of institutional investors about their carbon management and plans to reduce carbon emissions.

Many of them also face reporting requirements elsewhere, including in the European Union, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Singapore and cities like Hong Kong.

Moreover, some of the same U.S. companies, notably banks and asset managers that operate or sell products in Europe, have already started to comply with the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation. Those regulations require companies to report how sustainability risks are integrated into investment decision-making.

While California isn’t the first place to mandate climate disclosures, it is the fifth-largest economy in the world. So, the state’s new laws are poised to have substantial influence worldwide. Subsidiaries of companies that didn’t have to report their emissions before will now be subject to disclosure requirements. California is in effect exercising its immense market leverage to establish climate disclosures as standard practice in the U.S. and beyond.

California also has a history of being a test bed for future federal U.S. policies. The U.S. government is considering broader emissions reporting requirements. But California’s new rules go further than either the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed corporate climate disclosure rules or President Joe Biden’s proposed disclosure rules for federal contractors.

The most controversial part of the new disclosure rules involves scope 3 emissions. These are emissions from a company’s suppliers and its consumers’ use of its products, and they are notoriously difficult to track accurately.

California’s new emissions reporting law directs the California Air Resources Board, which will develop the regulations and administer them, to allow some leeway in scope 3 reporting as long as the reports are made with a reasonable basis and disclosed in good faith. It’s also important to note that at this point the disclosure laws don’t require companies to cut these emissions, only to report them. But tracking scope 3 emissions does highlight where companies could pressure suppliers to make changes.

What can disclosures achieve?

The plethora of climate disclosure mandates globally suggest that policymakers and investors around the world perceive climate disclosures as driving actions that protect the environment. The big question is: Do disclosure rules actually work to reduce emissions?

My research shows that voluntary carbon disclosure systems like CDP’s that focus on reporting corporate sustainability outputs, such as having science-based emissions targets, tend not to be as effective as those that focus on outcomes, such as a company’s actual carbon emissions.

For example, a company could earn an A or B grade from CDP and still increase its entitywide carbon emissions, notably when it does not face regulatory pressure.

In contrast, a recent study of the U.K.’s 2013 disclosure mandate for U.K.-incorporated listed firms found that companies reduced their operational emissions by about 8% relative to a control group, with no significant changes to their profitability. When companies report their emissions, they can gain important knowledge about inefficiencies in their operations and supply chains that weren’t evident before.

Ultimately, a well-designed disclosure program, whether voluntary or mandatory, needs to focus on consistency, comparability and accountability. Those traits allow companies to demonstrate that their climate pledges and actions are real and not just a front for greenwashing.

Lily Hsueh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

In August 2023, residents of Juneau, Alaska, watched as the Mendenhall River swelled to historic levels in a matter of hours. The rushing water undercut the riverbank and swallowed whole stands of trees and multiple buildings.

The source for the flood was not heavy rainfall – it was a small glacial lake located in a side valley next to the Mendenhall Glacier.

Glacier-dammed lakes like this are abundant in Alaska. They form when a side valley loses its ice faster than the main valley, leaving an ice-free basin that can fill with water. These lakes may remain stable for years, but often they reach a tipping point, when high water pressure opens a channel underneath the glacier.

The rapid and catastrophic drainage of lake water that follows is called a glacial lake outburst flood, or GLOF for short. The flood waters race downstream over hours or days and often hit unexpectedly.

Glacial lake outburst floods have destroyed homes, infrastructure and human life around the world. They have killed hundreds of people in Europe and thousands of people in both South America and central Asia. Globally, an estimated 15 million people live downstream from these lakes, with those in Asia’s high mountains at greatest risk.

Flooding from a glacial lake in the Himalayas on Oct. 5, 2023, left dozens of people dead in India as water swept away bridges, damaged a hydropower station and flooded small towns. Satellite images showed that the lake level dropped markedly within hours.

I study Alaska’s glacial lakes and the hazards that glacier-dammed lakes in particular can create. Our latest research shows how these lakes are changing as global temperatures rise.

When glaciers hold back lakes

Some glacial lakes are dammed by moraines – mounds of rock and debris that are left behind as a glacier retreats. Too much pressure from extreme rainfall or an avalanche or landslide into the lake can burst these dams, triggering a devastating flood. Officials say that’s likely what happened when the Himalayas’ Lhonak Lake flooded towns in India in October 2023.

Glacier-dammed lakes, like Suicide Basin off of Mendenhall Glacier, are instead dammed by the glacier itself.

These glacial lakes tend to repeatedly fill and drain due to a cyclic opening and closing of a drainage path under the ice. The fill-and-drain cycles can create hazards every couple of years or multiple times a year.

How glacier lake hazards are changing in Alaska

In a new study, we identified 120 glacier-dammed lakes in Alaska, 106 of which have drained at least once since 1985.

These lakes have collectively drained 1,150 times over 35 years. That is an average of 33 events every year where a lake drains its contents, sending a pulse of water downstream and creating potentially hazardous conditions.

Many of these lakes are in remote locations and often go undetected, while others are much closer to communities, such as Suicide Basin, which is within 5 miles of the state capital and has frequently drained over the past decade.

Our study found that, as a whole, glacier-dammed lakes in Alaska have decreased in volume since 1985, while the frequency of outbursts remains unchanged. This suggests a regional decline in the potential hazards from glacier-dammed lakes because less stored water is available, a trend that has been documented for glacier-dammed lakes worldwide.

To better understand this trend, imagine a bathtub. The higher the sides of the tub, the more water it can hold. For a glacier-dammed lake, the glacier acts as a side of the bathtub. Warming air temperatures are causing glaciers to melt and thin, lowering the tub walls and therefore accommodating less water. That reduces the total volume of water available for a potential glacial lake outburst flood.

Smaller lakes, however, have had less significant change in area over time. As the August 2023 event clearly illustrated, even small lakes can have significant effects downstream.

Alaskans witnessed a new record of destruction in Juneau from the flood. The water reached nearly 15 feet at the Mendenhall River gauge – 3 feet above its previous record.

In summer 2023 alone, Alaskans saw record or near-record flooding from multiple glacier-dammed lakes near populated areas or infrastructure, such as Suicide Basin, near Juneau; Skilak Glacier-Dammed Lake, which affects the Kenai River; and Snow Lake, which impacts the Snow River. These lakes have remained about the same volume but have produced some larger floods in recent years.

One possible explanation is that with a thinner and weaker ice dam, the water can drain much more quickly, though further research is needed to understand the mechanics. Regardless, it’s a reminder that these lakes and events are unpredictable.

How will rising temperatures affect these lakes?

Glacier loss in Alaska is accelerating as temperatures rise. Due to the large volume of glaciers and the many intersecting valleys filled with ice in Alaska, there is a high probability that new lakes will develop as side valleys deglaciate, introducing new potential hazards.

Many of these lakes are likely to develop in remote locations, and their presence may only be noticed in satellite images that reveal changes over time.

Given the abundance of glacial lakes and their potential threat to human lives, early warning and monitoring systems are worryingly sparse. Efforts are underway, such as those in the Himalayas and Chile, but further research is needed to develop reliable, low-cost monitoring systems and to improve our understanding of these evolving hazards.

Brianna Rick received funding from The National Science Foundation.