Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
(
Table 1.6
). In 2009, a total of 920 million acres was farmed, down from its peak of 1.2 bil-
lion acres in 1954. The 2.2 million farms and ranches in the U.S. in 2009 has been relatively
stable since 1985. Texas reports the most farms in the U.S. with 247,500; Missouri is in
second with some 108,000 farms.
Larger and more specialized farming operations have evolved since the 1930s. As a result,
a much smaller group of producers accounts for the majority of agricultural production.
The 2007 Census of Agriculture showed that about 93 percent of all agricultural production
came from 16 percent of U.S. farms, and 74 percent of the total came from only 5 percent of
the farms—about 116,000 farmers (
Figure 1.11
)
.
Despite all of the changes, today families or family businesses still own nearly 96 percent
of the nation's farms. However, it is important to note that many of these
family-run farming operations are very large and sophisticated businesses. At the same time,
non-family owned corporate farms, particularly in the livestock and poultry industries,
are increasing in number. In 2007, such operations accounted for 22.3 percent of total
farm sales.
Farm income
Net farm income
in the U.S. is determined by prices of farm products, production yields,
and farm production expenses. Farm prices can be highly volatile, moving upward quickly
in response to low tomato yields, or plunging if the market doesn't need all of the pork pro-
duced by U.S. producers. Note that the commodity nature of most agricultural markets
means that individual farmers have little control over the price of their production. They can
take steps to manage their price risk, but cannot do much about the actual price they receive.
Production expenses can also be volatile. Fuel costs can soar when general market supplies
are short. The price of nitrogen fertilizer, which is made from natural gas, can increase very
quickly if natural gas is in short supply.
73.5%
$500,000 or more
5.3%
11.2%
$250,000-$499,999
4.2%
8.2%
$100,000-$249,999
6.7%
Sales
Farms
3.0%
5.7%
$50,000-$99,999
3.2%
$10,000-$49,999
18.3%
0.9%
Less than $10,000
59.8%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Percent of total
Figure 1.11
Distribution of farms by sales class, 2007
Source: 2007 Census of Agriculture.
