An aging breed: Nebraska's farmers are getting older. Who will replace them?

As Justin Taubenheim combined soybeans in a Buffalo County field on an October afternoon, he thought about why he does it.

"I'm not farming to get rich,” he said. “I'm farming to maintain a legacy, a way of life. Faith, family and farming, in that order. The farm is kinda like the icing on the cake."

Taubenheim, 31, sports fewer gray hairs than your normal Nebraska farmer.

The average age of a principal Nebraska farm or ranch operator: 56.4 years old, according to census figures.

The rising worry: There won’t be a next generation to carry on family farms – even in an era where large machinery and new technologies have reduced the manpower needed.

The challenge goes beyond farming. Who will fill vital jobs in transportation, processing, machinery? Who will teach at rural schools, provide health care and run Main Street businesses?

That worry makes it critical to get more younger farmers like Taubenheim and his brother Tanner, 28, interested in living and working in rural Nebraska.

Younger Nebraska farmers and ranchers, like the brothers who spoke to the “Flatwater Free Press,” talked about their love of land and livestock. They stressed the importance of family ties – carrying on legacies that stretch back generations and now stretch forward as their own kids have the same childhood experiences they once did.

But there are also barriers. Can the family farm provide income for an additional family? Can their spouse find an off-farm job with health insurance? Are there nearby schools, grocery stores and services for young families like theirs?

The Taubenheim brothers, both married with young children, are the fourth generation involved in a family business known for purebred Gelbvieh beef cattle.

They also have what many young farmers covet: Land. The brothers and their parents each own half of Taubenheim Farms.

"I have what others don't. I had a place to go," Justin said of returning to the family farm after college and settling with his family near Kearney.

"I get to coach my son's flag football team and help with the (high school) wrestling team," he said. "I think there's value in raising a kid in a small class where they … know everybody and their families."

It isn’t easy. Startup costs are big hurdles for young producers, even those with strong family ties. There's equipment - at least $500,000 for a new combine and $100,000 for a tractor - and seed, feed and fertilizer bills.

Younger farmers and ranchers may have to rent land for years, until - or if - they inherit it.

"We just didn't have the deposit needed to start by owning our own cattle or farm ground," said Shelby Loeffelholz, 30, a beef producer who works with her Phelps County family. "We purchased a feed truck and loader, but that basically was our startup."

Most of Leoffholz’s time is spent operating her 8,000-head feedlot on rented land north of Bertrand. She also partners on a cow-calf herd with her parents and brother and helps with family farm crops. Loeffelholz, her husband, Logan, and their two young boys live on property rented from her parents. Logan works at an implement dealership in Lexington.

She and Logan would like to own a feedlot. They might be more involved in the family farm after her parents retire.

Like Loeffelholz, many Nebraska farm kids now in their 20s and 30s sought higher education and worked other jobs before coming home.

Mark McHargue understands this journey. The Nebraska Farm Bureau president returned to Central City in 1986, after a year in college, to farm. He grows crops and custom-raises pigs.

His sons Andrew, 32, and Jordan, 28, are home now, but not doing exactly what he did.

"Neither of the boys really liked the hogs that much," McHargue said. Instead, they turned their own interests into their careers.

Andrew worked seven years for a neighbor and then bought that farm. Jordan runs a construction company, co-owned with his father, that has built more than 70 houses in the past six years.

All three men have created rural Nebraska jobs: A combined 18 full-time construction and farm jobs, by McHargue’s count.

Young farmers don’t always return immediately. Alec Ibach's journey back to his family's Sumner farm and ranch took eight years: Four to complete a University of Nebraska-Lincoln degree; four more working at Farm Credit Services of America.

He and a co-worker, Nate Hartman, eventually launched Apache Ag, a company that sells seed and other crop products from a new office near Miller.

Alec's parents, Greg, longtime state ag director, and Teresa, a new state senator, wanted their triplets to work away from home before deciding whether to return. "They wanted us … to see other things and have other experiences," Alec said.

Alec, his wife, Meredith, and their 2-year-old daughter now live in Kearney where Meredith is a kindergarten teacher.

Greg Ibach has returned to manage the family’s beef production after a stint as a United States Department of Agriculture undersecretary. Alec focuses on the farm's commodity marketing while working with Apache Ag customers.

The path back to their family farm near Lexington is less certain for the Batie sisters, Juliana Loudon, 32, and Cicely Wardyn, 29, who already have ag-related careers.

"Julie and I have said we don't want to just give up the farm," said Wardyn, so they're doing succession planning with parents Don and Barb Batie.

Loudon, the ag teacher and FFA adviser at Overton, lives with her husband, Doug, and son on a nearby acreage. Starting a family influenced the decision to return to Dawson County. "It was being home," Loudon said. "That's the way I was raised, and I want my kid to have that, too."

She farms on weekends and summers now but wants to run the farm full time after her parents retire. Her sister's family-farm role is more complicated.

Wardyn is now an agriculture and natural resources specialist in Gov. Jim Pillen’s Policy Research Office.

“If Julie takes over the farm full time, what is my role going to be? I don’t know, yet,” she said.

Young Nebraskans, especially those not tied to a family farm or ranch, need other incentives to live and work in rural communities, Wardyn said – they need child care, places to gather, ways to get involved in the community.

Loudon said the many "unsung jobs" available must be better promoted at high schools and in hometowns.

"I have a list of 300-plus careers directly related to agriculture and only two are farming and ranching," said Matt Kreifels, a UNL agriculture professor.

Nebraska has 209 different ag education and FFB programs in Nebraska, he said. The state also has beginning farmer programs and incentives to link young people with older landowners who don't have children returning to farm.

How to get future generations to live and work in rural Nebraska is, McHargue said, "the million-dollar question.”

One vital need: Dependable broadband internet required for ag production and remote work that can serve as “the great equalizer” for rural Nebraska, Loudon said.

Many farmers also need their spouse's full-time job for health insurance. Loeffelholz says her family depends on the health insurance her husband gets from his company.

And everyone agrees: Those who want to farm need to love it.

"The ones who do come back are the ones who are successful, who will grow, expand and be more productive," Alec Ibach said. "Farming is not a job. It's a lifestyle.”

The “Flatwater Free Press” is Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.