Sons Are Still More Likely Than Daughters To Take Over The Family Farm

Growing up on their family farm in West Bend, Iowa, Haley Banwart and her brother Jack were like any other farm kids. They did chores, participated in 4-H and even raised cattle together."My brother and I have had the same amount of responsibilities," says Banwart, 22. "I can drive a tractor, I can bale square hay. But it was just expected that my brother would return home."Her family never really discussed it. "It was always kind of the unwritten rule," she says. "My brother would go back and farm" — and she'd find another path.Haley now has a degree in agricultural communications and journalism from Iowa State University and a job at the Coalition to Support Iowa's Farmers. Jack is four years younger — he'll start college in the fall.The farm he'll return to in four years is equipped with high-tech machinery, and he'll rely on and benefit from scientific advances and a constant barrage of data and information. Farms today look different in many ways than they did decades ago. But the