Erin McKinstry/For The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting

As generations age, farmland owners increasingly less connected to land

They’re not making any more farmland. According to the USDA, the number of acres rented out has remained steady over the last 50 years, at around 40 percent. The difference is the landowner is increasingly not the farmer next door or a landlord intimately involved in the farming operation. Instead,