Touch the Soil News #2019 (photo –Wheat Harvest – (Courtesy of USDA )
Trends often times not publicized can be more astonishing that the publicized trends. Take farmland for example. The USDA reports that in 1953, America’s “peak” farmland year, the nation was farming 1,205,740,000 acres. In 1953, America had a population of 160,180,000 people. This translates into 7.5 acres of farmland for every one person in America
Fast forward to 2023, seventy years later. Now, America is only farming 893,400,000 acres. The population in America will reach 335,000,000 in 2023. This then translates into 2.66 acres for every one person. This means that farmland security in America, on a per-capital basis, is now roughly one third of what it was back in 1953.
A trend growing in the nation is urban agriculture. Is there more to this trend than just wanting to source food locally? It is possible Americans are feeling the impacts of declining farmland security? You can review the USDAs Farms and Land in Farms report at the links below.
https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/5712m6524
