Highlights of the 2012 Census of Agriculture: Farmland Acreage

Abstract

The Census defines a farm as any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the reference year, and this definition has been used since 1974. The amount of land in farms in the United States declined between the 2007 and 2012 Censuses from 922 million acres to 915 million acres. This represents a less than one percent decline, the third smallest decline between Censuses since 1950 (source). The states with the largest decline in land devoted to agricultural production include Kentucky (6.7%), Alaska (5.4%), Georgia (5.2%), Mississippi (4.6%), and Wisconsin (4.1%). Given the returns to agricultural production between 2007 and 2012, it is perhaps not surprising that 19 states reported an increase in farmland between the two Censuses.