> The average age of the farmer now is 58. And so one of the big issues just plaguing farming is that there's just not enough labor to go around. The problem is

> The average age of the farmer now is 58. And so one of the big issues just plaguing farming is that there's just not enough labor to go around. The problem is getting worse every year. If you keep making teen-aged labor more and more impractical, then you're going to have problems. A lot of the really labor intensive work in farming requires almost no skill, just a whole bunch of hands and bodies. The cycles of farming naturally have highs and lows; when it's time to plant or time to reap, it's all hands on deck to get it done before time and weather runs out, and the rest of the season you need considerably less labor. I think they still take two weeks off school in the middle of the fall in Aroostook County, Maine, so the potato farmers can get their harvest in.