Ag Minute: Agriculture - An Industry Dominated by Families
- Sangamon County News
- Jul 25
- 4 min read
Around the world, farms are owned and operated by families of many different sizes and ages. “Family farm” is a phrase commonly used in the industry, almost as frequently as the term “farm” itself. Agriculture has shifted immensely over time, and particularly since the industrial revolution drove many jobs out of rural America and into the cities. Farmers became responsible for feeding the global population, a large percentage of whom had at once grown their own food and now relied on food being grown for them. Over the 90 years between 1910 and 2000, farmworkers in the U.S. shrunk from almost 14 million to around 3 million (USDA). As a percentage of the population, the numbers are even more dramatic and tell a story about innovation within agriculture and the dramatic advancements that came with the introduction of tractors and the green revolution.
While the number of people in the U.S. engaged in farm production has decreased significantly, the organization of who owns those businesses tasked with feeding a growing global population has changed to a lesser degree. According to the USDA, 96% of farms in the U.S. were still family farms as of 2023. To many in the press and public eye, agriculture gets a reputation for being comprised of “factory farms” and corporations looking to control the food system. While input manufacturing, support services, and the processing sector of agriculture has grown and is controlled by large companies, many of which are publicly owned corporations, production agriculture itself remains largely in the hands of families. While slightly disproportionate to the 96% of farms being family owned, 87% of the farmland in the U.S. is family owned and 82% of the agricultural value produced is done so by family operations (USDA). Many people confuse family farms with the size of farms, but some of the largest farms in the U.S. are still considered family farms, owned and operated by members of one or a couple families.
To break the distinctions between American family farms down further, the USDA categorizes them into small, mid-size, and large family farms - depending on the gross cash farm income (GCFI). Small farms and large farms are additionally broken down further, to illustrate a better picture of the businesses that are producing agricultural products and operating across the landscape. Here is how it is broken down:
Small Family Farms: Generating GCFI of less than $350,000 annually
Retirement: The principal operator has retired and farms at a small scale
Off-Farm: The principal operator has a primary occupation other than farming
Low Sales: Farming is the operator’s main occupation and they have a GCFI of less than $150,000
Moderate Sales: Farming is the operator’s main occupation and they have a GCFI of less between $150,000 and $349,999
Mid-Size Family Farms: Generating GCFI of between $350,000 and $999,999 annually
Large Family Farms: Generating GCFI of $1,000,000 or more annually
Large Farm: Generating GCFI of between $1,000,000 and $4,999,999
Very Large Farm: Generating GCFI of $5,000,000 or more annually
The USDA’s 2024 edition of America’s Farms and Ranches at a Glance goes into discussion and depicts the number of farms in each category, as well as the non-family farms in the U.S. Out of 1,889,800 farms and ranches in the U.S., just 66,977 are considered non-family farms. 86.1% of all American farms are considered small by the USDA’s definition, with that group operating on almost 41% of the acres, but producing just 17.2% of the agricultural value in the U.S. While only making up 0.5% of all farms in the U.S., very large family farms produce almost 20% of the agricultural value. When adding the value produced of the other subsector of the large family farm distinction, almost half (47.6%) of the nation’s agricultural value is produced on large family farms. When diving into specific commodities, large scale family farms represent important production values in cash grains and soybeans, cotton, as well as in dairy and specialty crops. Both hay and poultry/egg production are concentrated amongst the small family farm group. Most of this information was collected by the USDA - ERS division from 2023 in order to provide data to the public on classifications of farms and the commodities they produce.
While the agricultural landscape has changed dramatically over the last 200 years, one thing that has remained the same has been the importance of family farms. While non-family farms have been garnering attention lately, they still represent a very small percentage of overall farms, and a fairly small percentage of both acres operated on and value produced. Much of the value produced in the U.S. is on large family farms, who may be bigger and more complicated than they once were, but are still owned and operated by blood and marriage related family members.
To look at the USDA graph of farms and farmworkers in the U.S. from 1910 to 2000, follow the link below;
To read more about “America’s Farms and Ranches at a Glance” from 2024, follow the link below;
Lim, K., McFadden, J., Miller, N., & Lacy, K. (2024). America’s farms and ranches at a
glance: 2024 edition (Report No. EIB-283). U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic
Research Service.
