There were 2.07 million farms in the United States in 2015, 1 percent fewer than in 2014, according to the National Agriculture Statistics Service. Those farms occupied a total of 912 million acres of farmland, 1 million less than the year before.
That’s not necessarily bad news, said Jonah Bowles, Virginia Farm Bureau Federationsenior agriculture market analyst. Virginia’s farm economy remains robust even as it adjusts to modern economic pressures, he said.
“With the average age of a farmer now at 59 years and rising, some of the farmers going out are bound to be people retiring,” Bowles said. “But the percentage of farmland retired from agriculture according to this report is less than 1 percent of America’s farmland, so we’re basically staying stable.
“As smaller farms go out, most of the time that acreage is picked up by a neighboring farmer expanding his or her operation to become more productive and profitable.”
In fact, the NASS report cites the disappearance of farms with sales of less than $10,000 annually as the major factor in the loss of 18,000 farms since 2014. The number of farms at all other income levels has remained stable, and the nation’s smallest farms account for less than 10 percent of all U.S. farmland.
The number of farms in Virginia dropped 3 percent last year, from 45,900 to 44,700. Land in farms decreased by 1,000 acres, to 8.1 million, while the average Virginia farm size grew by 2 acres to 181 acres.
“We’re in a world market today. Technology has not only allowed farmers around the world to raise much more food, but also has created tighter profit margins,” Bowles said. “Communication advances mean we know crop conditions around the world almost instantly. That competition tends to drive down commodity prices in general, and smaller farms just can’t compete in that arena.”
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