by The number of American farms is going out of office with small farms and Black farmers the most affected – again, according to the 2022 agricultural census, a comprehensive view of the state of American farms and farmers published every five years by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) data. But industrial factory farms that raise thousands of livestock in confined areas in rural America have expanded further into rural America, taking over smaller farms, garnering taxpayer subsidies and harming the environment.
Related: Benefits of opportunity: how Oregon law boosted small food business and built community
The agricultural census is a massive data collection effort involving more than a million farmers, tracking the number, size and types of farms across sectors, as well as farmers and finances – at the national, state and county levels . It provides insights into the impact – good and bad – of government programs on farmers, workers, land use, animals, waterways and the climate, and should inform future policy. The most recent data set includes the Covid Pandemic – an extraordinary time of rising global food prices, government farm subsidies and food insecurity.
There’s a lot to sell in the 700-page report, but here are some of the key takeaways:
The number of farms and farmland continues to decline sharply – but mega-farms are on the rise
The number of farms has fallen by 7% in the past five years to 1.9m – compared to a peak of almost 7m in the mid-1930s, and 2.2m in 2000. Around 20m acres of farmland have been lost in the same period, as fields have been converted. a way for urban sprawl, solar farms and other industrial development.
The overall decline is not steady. The biggest decrease – 17% – was among the smallest farms with less than 10 acres. The globalized U.S. agricultural system favors large, corporate-owned operations, as smaller farms struggle more with booming and bust prices, extreme weather related to the climate crisis and access to government subsidies and other credit.
Large farms – including mega-operations with hundreds of thousands of acres – make up only 4% of the total number of farms, but control two-thirds of US agricultural land. The largest – with sales of $5m or more – accounted for less than 1% of all farms but 42% of all sales. Consolidation of American agriculture continues, despite a commitment from USDA secretary Tom Vilsack, a former dairy giant, to end small and medium-sized farm operations.
Another sharp decline in Black farmers
The number of Black farmers has fallen by 8% over the past five years, the largest decline among all ethnic and racial groups. This is another setback for Black farmers, who were forced out of agriculture by years of discriminatory USDA policies that systematically denied them access to low-interest loans, grants and other assistance. The number of Black farmers has fallen from a peak of almost 1m in 1910 to 41,807 in 2022.
It is perhaps too early to judge the Biden administration, which has enacted policies aimed at helping Black and other underserved farmers, but so far little has been done. Black farmers are happy. White predominance among farmers has increased from 89% in 2017 to 95% in 2022.
In some good news, the number of Hawaiian and Pacific Island farmers increased by 13%, with a whopping 50% increase (1,509 in 2022 compared to 1,007 in 2017) in new producers. This may in part reflect the rise of Native Hawaiian farming practices and the backcountry movement.
Climate smart agriculture and conservation are still rare among American farmers – despite government programs
The number of farms enrolled in USDA conservation programs that pay farmers to leave environmentally important areas as wetlands declined by 7% between 2017 and 2022. Smaller farms saw the steepest decline, likely due to high commodity prices offered on the world market. short-term economic gains, according to Anne Schechinger of the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Increasing financial support — USDA rents — for long-term conservation projects like a 30-year wetland preserve could attract more farmers and maximize the climate and environmental benefits, Schechinger said.
An incentive scheme to encourage cover crops – a regenerative agro-ecology technique that helps reduce the use of synthetic fertilisers, improves soil health and conserves water – shows mixed results. The number of farms enrolled in the program fell by about 153,000, but cover crops were up 17% overall, largely due to larger farms planting nutrient-rich cover crops between periods growing your cash crop.
Big farms and corporations benefit the most from taxpayer dollars
Government payments to farmers increased by 17% since the last census to $10.4bn – thanks largely to Covid-era subsidies, which boosted some farmers’ incomes to record levels between 2020 and 2022. But the number of farms fell significantly which receives taxpayer subsidies. 25%, and it was the bigger, wealthier farms – that weren’t struggling – that benefited the most. Farms with the highest sales (at least $50,000) received 64% of the total subsidies – despite being only 11% of the beneficiaries. The smallest farms account for almost half (48%) of those that received some financial assistance, but only 4% of the total money.
America’s industrial agricultural complex is raising more animals on factory farms than ever before
Over the past five years, the US has lost 34% of dairy farms, 9% of hog farms and 7% of beef cattle farms but the number of livestock has remained more or less constant. That means fewer, but much larger, concentration lots – linked to a range of harms including water and air pollution, poor animal welfare, labor abuse and climate impacts. As it stands, 1.7 billion animals – mostly pigs, cattle, chickens and sheep – will be raised on factory farms in the United States in 2022 – a 6% increase since the last census in 2017 and a 47% increase since 2002. This includes 7,406 chicken farms with an additional half a million birds in 2022 – a 17% increase over the last decade.
According to analysis by Food and Water Watch (FWW), 24,000 factory farms are producing 940bn lb of manure each year – twice the amount of sewage produced by the entire US population. This is 52bn pounds more greenhouse gas emitting concentrated manure than in 2017, equivalent to creating a new city of 39m inhabitants in the last five years.
Small and medium-sized dairy farms have fared worse. Nearly 7 million dairy cattle – 75% of the total – are now raised on factory farms, each with 2,000 cows or more. “As industrial areas drive family-scale farmers off their land … the benefits flow to private coffers and our communities and environment are left holding the bag,” said Amanda Starbuck, FWW research director.
“America today is a factory farming nation.”
