USDA identifies farmers and ranchers as limited resource (LR) producers as those who, for two consecutive years, operate a farm with gross farm sales less than $180,300 (in 2020 dollars) and have total household income either below the federal poverty level for a family of four or less than half of the median household income in the county where they live.
Between 2017 and 2020, 9.3% of all U.S. farms had an LR principal operator, according to the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS). Of the remaining farms, 76.3% had farm sales low enough to meet LR status, but did not meet other requirements, while 14.3% had gross farm sales above the LR threshold.
The ARMS data also reveal that the share of farms that were LR varied geographically, with lower proportions in the Plains region and higher proportions in the Atlantic and West regions. There were also within-region differences in the share of farms that were LR farms, such as the Midwest, where 4% of farms in Iowa and Illinois were LR while Missouri had roughly 12%.
This highlights differences in the scale of production, as well as differences in off-farm income and county median incomes. ARMS is the only nationally representative survey that collects the information needed to determine whether the principal operator on a farm meets the LR criteria. — USDA Economic Research Service
