Three Decades of Consolidation in U.S. Agriculture

Crop production has seen a widespread and persistent shift of acreage and sales to larger farming operations over the last three decades, however the pace of consolidation has slowed since 2007, were among the findings in a new report from the USDA’s Economic Research Service, “Three Decades of Consolidation in U.S. Agriculture.”

Some of the key findings are as follows:

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  • Farm production has continued to shift to larger farms. By 2015, 51 percent of the value of U.S. farm production came from farms with at least $1 million in sales, compared to 31 percent in 1991 (adjusted for price changes).
  • Consistent with the shift in the value of production, cropland acreage has also concentrated into fewer, but larger, farms. By 2012, 36 percent of all cropland was on farms with at least 2,000 acres of cropland, up from 15 percent in 1987. The midpoint
    for cropland acreage, at which half of all cropland is on larger farms and half is on smaller farms, nearly doubled from 650 acres in 1987 to 1,201 acres in 2012.
  • The pace of farm consolidation appears to have slowed after 2007. In livestock, only dairy shows continued rapid consolidation. In field crops and in vegetable/melon crops, land continued to consolidate onto larger farms after 2007, but at a slower pace than in previous years. However, financial considerations still favor larger operations, as their profits (rates of return on assets) considerably exceed those for smaller operations.
  • Despite increased consolidation, most production continues to be carried out on family farms, which are owned and operated by people related to one another by blood or marriage. Family farms accounted for 90 percent of farms with at least $1 million
    in sales in 2015, and produced 83 percent of production from million-dollar farms.

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