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USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack recently called for 100,000 new farmers — a recognition that the U.S. farm population is aging rapidly. To create a revitalized, sustainable, and socially just food system, we need to cultivate a new generation of farmers — and quickly.

But starting a business takes cash, and a farm is no exception. For beginning farmers, the ability to come up with enough money for things like rent, tools, fencing, animals, and feed is likely to determine whether they’ll be in business at all.

In an ongoing survey of young farmers conducted by the National Young Farmers’ Coalition, 53 percent of respondents cited lack of capital as the biggest obstacle to starting a farm. A 2008 survey of 706 New York and New England farmers found that 25 percent of farmers were denied financing.

In the last farm bill, a new Individual Development Account program was created to help beginning farmers save money, but it has yet to receive any funding of its own. And assuming that the new penny-pinching House won’t be of any help, it’s probably time to think about alternatives.

The best opportunity may lie in the USDA’s 40-year-old Rural Youth Loan program. With a few changes in the 2012 farm bill, this program could be the microcredit that the next generation needs.

The Rural Youth Loan program was created to provide opportunities for youth living in communities with fewer than 50,000 residents to learn about agriculture and start income producing businesses. And by youth, they really mean it. Loans are given out to kids as young as 10 and as old as 20. A USDA video tells the story of the Hungate boys of Idaho, ages 9, 11, and 12, who were given a $5,000 loan to buy four cows. Drake, the eldest Hungate, reports, “we got really good interest — and we locked it in at 3.2 percent.”