World view US Handing over the reins With an ageing population and grain prices uncertain, US farms face a recruitment crisis, relying on retirees and volunteers. Bamms Peter Lane reports from the midwest The interns going to get the farm. She just doesnt know it yet. Im speaking to Kyle, a Vietnam vet turned Texan rancher, at his homestead, Falster Farm in Winnsboro, Texas. Weve been talking for about an hour. The conversation is sporadically interrupted by his radio chatter with the intern, Elizabeth: The bulls gone got loose. Its already been sold. 12 Ill look in the backfield. Over the course of the day, the search unfolds. I feel like Im in an episode of The Archers. Im travelling across the midwest of America conducting ethnographies of agribusinesses on behalf of multinational oil company Shell. On every farm I visit, there is one prevalent theme. Agriculture in America faces a recruitment crisis. In a country best known for its two coastal cities, you could be forgiven for not knowing that two-fifths of America is farmland. It is the largest mass of fertile, tillable land on the planet, and it divides into millions of holdings, farms and ranches, 95% of which are family-run homesteads that have passed down across multiple generations. But the current generation of farmers is an ageing