Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
less than 2% of the country's workforce, 16% of the workforce is involved in the
food and fiber sector, ranging from farmers and input suppliers, to processors, ship-
pers, grocers, and restaurateurs. In 2008, the food and fiber sector contributed
$1.4 trillion, or 11%, to the gross domestic product (GDP), even though the farm
sector itself contributed less than 1%. Gross farm sales exceeded $200 billion, and
are relatively concentrated throughout the Midwest, parts of the East Coast, and
California. Production is split nearly evenly between crops and livestock.
Agriculture in the United States is highly advanced and productive. This pro-
ductivity allows Americans to spend less than 11% of their disposable income on
food, compared with a global average of 20%-30%. 1
Although the number of farms in the 2008 Census of Agriculture totaled 2.1
million, 75% of the value of production occurs on just 6.7%, or 143,500, of these
farms. This subset of farms has average sales of $1 million annually, and averages
2000 acres in size.
The United States produces and exports a large share of the world's grain. In
2008, the United States exported $53 billion of agricultural products (8% of all
U.S. exports), and imported $42 billion of agricultural products (4% of all U.S.
imports), making agriculture a positive contributor to the balance of trade. The
U.S. share of world production was 39% for corn, 38% for soybeans, and 8%
for wheat. The United States accounted for 23% of global wheat exports, 54%
of corn exports and 43% of soybean exports. If export markets were to decline
following an agroterrorism event, U.S. markets could be severely disrupted, since
22% of U.S. agricultural production is exported (10% of livestock and 23% of
crops).
The price of land is directly correlated to the productivity and marketability of
agricultural products, along with federal farm income support payments. In 2008,
farm assets exceeded $1.45 trillion, with $1.1 trillion in equity. Land and other real
estate accounts for 80% of those assets. Of the 938 million acres of farm land in
the United States, 46% are in crop land, 42% are pasture and range land, and 8%
are wood land.
Livestock and poultry are concentrated in various regions of the country, and in
large numbers. In 2009, the inventory included 95 million cattle and calves, and 60
million hogs and pigs. Farm sales of broilers and other meat-type chickens exceeded
8.5 billion birds.
Cattle are the most widely distributed given the prevalence of small cow-calf
herds throughout the country and pockets of dairy on the West Coast, upper
Midwest, and Northeast. However, beef cattle feedlots are particularly concen-
trated from northern Texas through Kansas, Nebraska, eastern Colorado, and
western Iowa.
Hog inventories are concentrated in the Midwest, especially Iowa and southern
Minnesota, and in North Carolina. The production of broilers for poultry meat
is concentrated throughout the Southeast, ranging from the Oklahoma-Arkansas
border up to the Delmarva peninsula (Delaware-Maryland-Virginia).
Search WWH ::




Custom Search