Touch the Soil News #2061 (photo – Growing Crops – Public Domain, USDA)
Each year, the USDA puts out a report called Farms and Land in Farms. The data provides trends for growers of all sizes and goes back to 1950.
The peak farmland year in America was 1954 when the nation was farming 1,206,335,000 acres. All these acres were farmed by 4,798,200 farms. With a population in 1954 of 163 million, America had 7.4 acres of farmland per person and one farmer was feeding 34 people.
Fast forward to 2023. America is now farming 878,560,000 acres. All these acres were farmed by 1,894,950 farms. With a population in 2023 of 341 million, America had only 2.58 acres of farmland per person and one farmer was feeding 180 people.
In summary, per person farmland has dropped to one third of what it was in 1954, and the number of people one farmer feeds has increased by five-fold. While productivity per acre has improved, the loss of 328 million acres and the number of people relying on those acres materially dilutes the effect of crop yield gains.
This explains in part the growing interest in reclaiming land in cities, interest in food over lawns, and the steadily increasing costs of farmland. Since 1950 farmland prices have increased 5 to 6 times.
