USDA: Fewer Farms, Farmland In 2008

There are 0.2% fewer U.S. farms in 2008, or 2.2 million, when compared to the previous year. Total land in farms, at 919.9 million acres, decreased 1.56 million acres, or 0.2%, from 2007. The average farm size was 418 acres, unchanged from the previous year. The decline in the number of farms and land in farms reflects a continuing consolidation in farming operations and diversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural uses, USAgNet reports.

Farm numbers and land in farms are broken down into five economic sales classes. Farms and ranches are classified into these “sales classes” by summing their sales of agricultural products and government program payments. Sales class breaks occur at $10,000, $100,000, $250,000, and $500,000.

Farm numbers declined slightly in the $1,000 to $9,999, $10,000 to $99,999, and $100,000 to $249,999 sales classes. Farm numbers rose slightly in the two largest sales classes. Because of strong commodity prices and rising value of sales many farms and ranches near the top of their sales class in 2007 may have moved into the next higher sales class in 2008 without expanding their operations.

The largest percentage changes from 2007 occurred in the smallest and largest sales classes. Farm numbers declined 0.5%, to 1.22 million farms, in the $1,000-$9,999 sales class. The number of farms in the $500,000 and over sales class increased by 4.8% to 126,000 farms. The number of farms with less than $100,000 in sales fell 0.6% from 2007 while the number of farms with $100,000 or more in sales rose
1.6%.