Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Cattle, Corn, And Soybeans Largest Farming Operations In U.S.

Most Farms Small With Less Than $50K Income Census Says

There are now 3.2 million farmers operating 2.1 million farms on 914.5 million acres of farmland across the United States, according to the 2012 Census of Agriculture, released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

The survey shows 87% of U.S. farms are family or individually operated, but 75%  of all farms had sales of less than $50,000, and produced only 3% of the total value of farm products sold.

On the other end of the scale 4% of farms having sales of over $1 million produced 66% of the total value of farm products sold.

Corn and soybean acres topped 50 percent of all harvested acres for the first time while the largest category of operations was beef cattle with 619,172 or 29 percent of all farms and ranches in 2012 specializing in cattle.

Some of the other key findings include:

> Both sales and production expenses reached record highs in 2012. U.S. producers sold $394.6 billion worth of agricultural products, but it cost them $328.9 billion to produce these products

> Much of the increased farm income was concentrated geographically or by farm categories.

> California led the nation with 9 of the 10 top counties for value of sales. Fresno County was number one in the United States with nearly $5 billion in sales in 2012, which is greater than that of 23 states. Weld County, Colorado ranked 9th in the top 10 U.S. counties.

> The top 5 states for agricultural sales were California ($42.6 billion); Iowa ($30.8 billion); Texas ($25.4 billion); Nebraska ($23.1 billion); and Minnesota ($21.3 billion).

> Principal operators were on average 58.3 years old and were predominantly male; second operators were slightly younger and most likely to be female; and third operators were younger still.

> Young, beginning principal operators who reported their primary occupation as farming increased 11.3 percent from 36,396 to 40,499 between 2007 and 2012.

> All categories of minority-operated farms increased between 2007 and 2012; the Hispanic-operated farms had a significant 21 percent increase.

> 144,530 farm operators reported selling products directly to consumers. In 2012, these sales totaled more than $1.3 billion (up 8.1 percent from 2007).

> Organic sales were growing, but accounted for just 0.8 percent of the total value of U.S. agricultural production. Organic farmers reported $3.12 billion in sales in 2012, up from $1.7 billion in 2007.

> Farms with Internet access rose from 56.5 percent in 2007 to 69.6 percent in 2012.

> 57,299 farms produced on-farm renewable energy, more than double the 23,451 in 2007.

> 474,028 farms covering 173.1 million acres were farmed with conservation tillage or no-till practices.

Conducted since 1840, the Census of Agriculture accounts for all U.S. farms and ranches and the people who operate them.

For access to the complete data series and tools to analyze this information, visit www.agcensus.usda.gov.

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