The Octogenarians Ruining the Country
By Jen Hill
The octogenarians in charge are slowly and painfully stifling this country to death. In general, the older generation has proven they are unwilling to let go and move into retirement, nor are they ready to make the changes our nation and the agriculture industry so badly need.
Earlier this year Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi surprised everyone when she announced she would seek reelection from her home state of California. It was a surprise because Ol’ Nancy recently celebrated her 82nd birthday and it was assumed she would retire at the end of her term. But power is hard to let go of, just ask Joe Biden’s handlers. That poor old man is staring 80 in the face and while his lack of mental and bodily fortitude or competency make for lots of laughs and great memes, it’s certainly not helping this nation. And it’s not that politicians like Pelosi and Biden are unusual. The average age of US Senators is 62.9 years old, a far cry from the average age of the US population, which has sat comfortably at 36-38 years old for some time. In comparison the average age of the Founding Fathers at the time the Declaration of Independence was signed was 44 with over a dozen of them clocking in at 35 or younger.
Trends in agriculture are only slightly better, where the average age of US producers sits at 57.5 years old, continuing a long-time trend of aging in the industry. It’s hard not to laugh and shake your head when you see various Cattlemen’s and Farmer advocacy organizations start “Young Producer” Committees that are full of members in their mid 30’s. “Young-ish” would probably be a more accurate term. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to think of myself as young, but by the time you are dropping kids off at middle school you should probably have graduated out of the “young” category.
In agriculture we see this problem manifest itself with the constant, droning complaint in the background about why the kids just won’t come back to the farm. Boomers like to blame the draw of urban amenities and a lack of overall work ethic in the next generation, but the reality is there’s a lot more to it than that. Adding another generation to a family operation brings a lot of baggage. When you’ve grown up listening to your Grandparents worry about business finances it’s hard for young people to imagine that there’s financial room in the operation to take on another full-time employee. They know that at some point the previous generations will have to be bought out of the business, a huge hurdle in an industry where margins are often razor thin. The next generation might also feel there’s little room for their ideas or passions. They previous generation has navigated the business successfully for a long time and can’t imagine why that should be messed with. This extends to their loyalty to groups and institutions that claim to represent them but fail to accomplish anything beneficial on their behalf. Behemoths in the Ag Advocacy Industry (because really, it’s become its own industry at this point) such as Farm Bureau and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association still enjoy the support from the older generation. These venerable members remember the days when many of the organizations actually represented the producers on the ground and successfully lobbied for a few things that made their lives better. They cannot reconcile what these groups have become with what they were intended to be and they often don’t keep up with what’s going on under the surface. So, every year, with little thought, they cut that membership check and pay outrageous fees for conventions so they can come home with a free sorting stick, a bag full of cheap pens and a feeling of importance. While I don’t have access to the membership data all it takes is a quick tour of the trade shows to notice that the only people more than five years out from Social Security are either working the trade booths or one of the oh-so-many Association employees.
The unwillingness to change or step aside for the next generation is an interesting trend from the Boomers who cut their teeth protesting the government in between orgies at Woodstock. The generation that was one of the first to collectively, loudly and publicly condemn the system created by those who came before them now seem willing to do anything to protect that system.
So why are the Boomers so reluctant to retire and let the next generation have a go? Is it just because power, whether in the halls of Congress or business, is so appealing or is it because they just know we’ll all screw it up? Perhaps it’s because under their national management we’ve seen massive increases in the cost of living and doing business and they genuinely can’t afford to retire. Either way this country sure seems like it could benefit from leadership that doesn’t also answer to the title “Great Grandma”.