I admit it. I'm a geek. In high school I was a "mathlete." So when the government published the 2007 Agriculture Census.... omg! Heaven!!! No longer do I have to wonder where our food is coming from and what types of farms are prospering in today's economy. No more will I wonder what kinds of farms are getting government money, or which farms are selling directly to consumers. The answers are ALL THERE.
I am WAY too excited, given the fact that Uncle Sam basically gave me the opportunity to spend the last 24 hours with my face glued to a spreadsheet. But that's what I did, and I learned a lot - which I'm here to share.
Long story short: There are 2 types of farms that increased in number between 2002 and 2007. Farms under 50 acres, and farms over 2000 acres. In the former group, nobody's really making much money but that's OK - most are retired or have other jobs. In the latter group, they are making money hand over fist in many cases - and they are totally on the government take.
Continued...
A Historical Look at U.S. Farms: Farming has been on the decline since at least 1950, which is the earliest year I looked into. The number of farms has fallen, and the acres of farmland have fallen too. Until this year, when the number of farms went UP. But - the acres of farmland still went down.
In 1950, there were 5,382,162 farms. By 1964, there were 3,157,857 - already a 41.3% decline. And today? 2,204,792 farms - less than half as many farms as existed in 1950, and about 2/3 of the number that existed in 1964.
Farms Compared With Population
In 1950, each U.S. farm fed 28 Americans on average. In 2007, each U.S. farm fed an average of 132 Americans. Perhaps this is because of increased yield or an increase in imports, but it is certainly because farms today are just bigger than they were way back when. There are fewer, larger farms instead of more, smaller farms.
In terms of acreage, 5.8 acres of U.S. farmland fed 1 American in 1964. By 2007, only 3.1 acres were required to feed each American. That number went up because of increased yield, no doubt, but also perhaps because of an increase in net imports (I'm not sure). It's certainly not because each person is eating less - we know that's not true!
What about the nature of these farms? Well, that changed too. I'm not going to fuss with fixing the HTML in my table to paste it on DailyKos so you'll have to look on my website if you want to see it.
The Smallest Farms
In 1964, 26% of farms were 50 acres or less. That percent actually went UP over time to 38.7% of all farms in 2007. Farms under 50 acres are doing OK today (more on this later). Farms 1-9 acres now make up 10.6% of all farms (they were at 5.8% of all farms in 1964) and farms 10-49 acres make up 28.1% of farms in 2007 (they were at 20.2% in 1964).
In absolute terms, the smallest farms (1-9 acres) increased substantially over time, from 182,581 to 232,849 in 2007. The were just about the same number of farms 10-49 acres in 2007 as there were in 1964 (620,283 now, 637,434 then). The number went way down, then back up over time.
My hunch? Throughout time, I'd guess that the smallest farms were mostly people who are retired or have a job other than farming to support them. If they aren't making big bucks on their farms, that's fine. But I'd venture to guess that the next group of farms 10-49 acres, well, once upon a time you could attempt to make a living on those farms. And it got harder and harder - hence the decrease in their numbers. But today, farmers on farms 10-49 acres are pretty much the same as farmers on farms 1-9 acres. They are mostly retired or they have another main job, and they aren't relying on farm income.
More info on farms 1-9 acres
More info on farms 10-49 acres
Farm Size Over Time: Mid-Size Farms
In 1964, 37.2% of farms were between 50-179 acres, 25.5% were between 180-499 acres, and 6.7% were between 500-999 acres. The first group saw a steady decline as a percent of farms to 30% of all farms in 2007. The second group also saw a brief increase followed by a steady decline, to 16.7% of all farms today. The third group actually increased as a percent of all farms until 1997, reaching 8.1% of all farms... then dropped to 6.8% in the next 10 years.
It seems to me that as farms grew larger and more consolidated over time, the two larger groups here, particularly farms 500-999, were at one time considered rather large farms. But today they are not.
These three groups have declined drastically in absolute numbers since 1964. In 1964 there were 1,175,370 farms 50-179 acres to 2007's 660,530. The next group, farms 180-499 acres, also saw steady decline from 806,743 farms in 1964 to 368,368 farms in 2007. The third group, farms 500-999 acres fell from 210,437 farms in 1964 to 149,713 farms in 2007.
I have yet to really crunch the numbers on these farms but my bet is that these farms are too large to just casually work on while retired or on the side of another full-time job. When you've got a mid-size farm, you want to be a farmer. And over time it's gotten harder and harder to make ends meet unless your farm is really, really big. So these guys either bought up their neighbors or went out of business.
Farm Size Over Time: Large Farms
There are two groups of farms here - farms 1000-1999 acres, and farms with 2000 or more acres. In the "2000+" group, the average farm had over 6000 acres in 2007 - nearly 10 square miles!
Farms 1000-1999 acres increased as a percent of all farms from 2.7% in 1964 to 4.7% in 2002. But, this time around they fell as a percent of all farms to 4.2%. In absolute numbers they grew from 84,999 in 1964, reaching a peak of 101923 in 1992 - and then they started to drop off. In 2007 there were only 92658 farms of this size.
My hunch is that they were large enough to make a living off of for a while, and in fact many of the mid-size farms consolidated to form farms that had about 1000-1999 acres... but now the consolidation continues even more as farms go bust (even these big guys), and so in the last 10 years the farms that survived often grew to become farms with over 2000 acres.
And then there's the largest group, farms with over 2000 acres. In 1964, there were 60293, making up 1.9% of all farms. In 2007, there were 80393, making up 3.6% of all farms.
More info on farms 2000+ acres
Here's what else I found:
- The larger the farm, the more likely the farmer has a "principle occupation" of farming (32.7% for farms under 10 acres, 86.2% for farms over 2000 acres)
- Big farms are more likely to report net gains. 78% of farms with 1000-1999 acres reported net gains - the highest of any group of farms. The lowest was farms under 10 acres, only 29.1% of whom reported net gains.
- 38% of all farms got government money. The average payout was $9522.91.
- Big farms get more government cash. 78.4% of farms with 1000-1999 acres got government money - the highest of any group of farms. The lowest was farms under 10 acres, only 5.6% of whom received government money.
- Bigger farms also get bigger government checks. The average payout to a small farm (under 10 acres) was $1591.88. The average payout to a farm over 2000 acres was $43,981.35. Over 50% of all of the government money paid to farms went to farms over 1000 acres.
- 6.2% of all farms reported direct sales to consumers.
- The smallest farms (under 10 acres) were twice as likely as the average farm overall to sell directly to consumers.
- The largest farms (over 2000 acres) were three times LESS likely as the average farm to sell directly to consumers.
- The smallest farms (under 10 acres) were twice as likely as the average farm to be organic. Sadly, this is still a tiny percent. Only 1.9% of farms under 10 acres were organic.