Number Of U.S. Farms Holds Steady @ 2.2M

A recent USDA report shows the number of farms in the U.S. in 2010 remained virtually unchanged from the previous year of about 2.2 million. Land in farms, at 920.0 million acres, increased 100,000 acres from 2009 but the average farm size of 418 acres is relatively unchanged.

Farm numbers and land in farms are broken down into five economic sales classes, based on agricultural product sales and government program payments. The category break down is $10,000, $100,000, $250,000 and $500,000. Farm numbers increased slightly on both ends of the spectrum, while higher commodity prices and larger value of sales contributed to changes in the number of farms within three sales classes.

In the $1,000 to $9,999 sales class, farm numbers increased 0.1%, to 1.23 million farms. Meanwhile, the number of farms in the sales category of $500,000 and more increased by 1.6% to 126,720 farms.

Land operated by farms in the sales class of $500,000 and more increased 3.0%, to 298.9 million acres, while land operated by farms with sales between $1,000-$9,999 decreased by 0.6%, to 105.0 million acres.

While the average farm size was unchanged in 2010, average farm sizes declined in some of the sales classes partially due to smaller farms moving up to higher sales classes. ◆