The number of farms in the U.S. has fallen below 2 million for the first time since before the Civil War, according to the recently released 2022 Census of Agriculture.
In 2022, there were 1,900,487 farms in the country, a 7% decline from the level reported in the 2017 Census. A farm is defined as an establishment that produced and sold, or would have sold in normal conditions, at least $1,000 in agricultural production in a year.
The Census of Agriculture, conducted every five years by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), includes producer responses to questions about their farming operations.
The latest Census also reported that the total U.S. land in farms declined 2.2% to 880 million acres in 2022. This decline, when combined with the higher proportional decline in the number of farms, meant that the average farm size increased by 5% to 463 acres per farm. — USDA Economic Research Service
