Current:Home > NewsAs the Number of American Farms and Farmers Declines, Agriculture Secretary Urges Climate Action to Reverse the Trend -Quantum Growth Learning
As the Number of American Farms and Farmers Declines, Agriculture Secretary Urges Climate Action to Reverse the Trend
View
Date:2025-04-26 07:43:38
On Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack helped unveil his agency’s Census of Agriculture, a huge quinquennial report that covers 6 million data points and gives the current state-of-the-state of American farms and farmers.
In a presentation at the Department of Agriculture (USDA), Vilsack underscored his main takeaway: The number of American farms and farmers continues to decline, a fact that has broad consequences, he argued, beyond farming itself.
“I’m concerned about the state of agriculture and food production in this country,” he said, before ticking off a few numbers to make his point.
In 2017, the year the previous report covered, the country had 2,042,220 farms. In 2022, it had 1,900,487. In that same span, the number of farmed acres dropped from almost 900 million acres to 880 million—a loss in area the size of all the New England states, minus Connecticut, Vilsack noted.
We’re hiring!
Please take a look at the new openings in our newsroom.
See jobsThe drop, Vilsack argued, has caused ripple effects across rural America, resulting in the loss of schools, businesses and healthcare infrastructure, and the overall hollowing out of farming communities.
One way to reverse the trend, he said, is to boost support for agricultural methods and practices that have climate benefits so farmers can earn money for them.
“It’s important for us to invest in climate-smart agriculture,” Vilsack said, “because that creates an opportunity for farmers to qualify, potentially, for ecosystem service market credits, which is cash coming into the farm for environmental results that can only occur on the farm. The farm then creates a second source of income.”
In other words, Vilsack argued, climate action could help save the American farm.
The problem, the census data suggest, is that American farms, especially big factory farms that generate significant greenhouse gas emissions, are growing in size. The data also show that, overall, more government support is flowing to larger or more profitable operations. According to the census, these farms are using more of the precious and drought-depleted water supplies that climate change is projected to deplete even more, especially in the West.
“This tells a compelling story, across all of these things,” said Anne Schechinger, the Midwest director of the Environmental Working Group (EWG). “It’s a clear picture that these larger farms are doing the best and are benefitting the most from government policies.”
Researchers and advocacy groups pored over the data after it was released Tuesday afternoon, trying to tease out trends.
The number of cattle, the biggest source of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions—both from burps and manure storage—actually went down by 5.6 million over the 2017 census. But the number of cattle in large dairies and feedlots—and the overall number of larger dairies and feedlots—went up.
An analysis of the data by the advocacy group Food & Water Watch found the number of animals raised on large, factory-scale farms rose by 6 percent over 2017 and by 47 percent over 2002. That translates to more animals in concentrated areas, generating more manure that’s disposed of in pits and lagoons where it emits more methane, an especially potent greenhouse gas.
“We haven’t seen a huge difference in the number of dairy cows,” said Amanda Starbuck, the group’s research director. “But because there’s a shift to these big facilities, we’ve seen an increase in emissions from manure management.” (According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent Greenhouse Gas Inventory, methane emissions from manure management rose from 39 million metric tons in 1990 to 66 million in 2021. When animals are raised on pasture, their manure releases very little methane.)
The EWG analysis found similar trends. The number of the largest cattle farms—those with 5,000 or more cattle per farm—has grown from about 1,100 in 2012 to just under 1,450 in 2022, an increase of nearly 30 percent. Of the “Big Three” livestock—cattle, chicken and hogs—the number of animals produced in the largest farms also went up, by about 28 percent for cows, and 24 percent for hogs and chickens.
As for farm economics, Schechinger noted that the most recent income data suggest that farmers are actually doing pretty well and that farm income is roughly at its 20-year average.
“Farmers don’t need more sources of revenue,” she said, referring to Vilsack’s comments. “They’re already getting subsidies and crop insurance, not to mention we have high farm incomes generally.”
Schechinger’s analyses in the past have found that much of the money the Agriculture Department spends on conservation tends to flow to big-ticket items, such as irrigation systems and methane digesters, which generally go to bigger farms.
“Conservation money shouldn’t be viewed as a revenue generator,” she added. “It should be viewed as having a climate benefit for the taxpayer money.”
In his presentation Tuesday, Vilsack referred to the agency’s push to build voluntary carbon markets in which farmers get paid for practices—planting cover crops, stopping tillage and employing so-called adaptive grazing—that sequester carbon or limit emissions. Polluters seeking to offset emissions then purchase those credits.
The Biden administration has attempted to make farmers central in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and has directed nearly $20 billion to the USDA for climate and conservation programs through the Inflation Reduction Act.
But to some analysts, the new census suggests that agricultural policy continues to enrich the biggest players at the expense of farmers and the climate.
“Vilsack is talking about a system that doesn’t benefit farmers; it benefits big food companies and ethanol producers,” said Ben Lilliston, director of rural strategies and climate change at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. “He’s spinning climate action and is missing some of the lessons of the data that tell us the markets aren’t working. Farmers need to get paid fairly. Farmers are weak players in the market right now. That’s the fundamental problem.”
“We don’t need to create other income streams that others can capitalize on,” Lilliston added, referring to carbon markets. “If farmers are doing things that are climate-smart, they should be paid a premium for it.”
Share this article
veryGood! (3983)
Related
- A South Texas lawmaker’s 15
- Wyatt Langford, Texas Rangers' red-hot rookie, makes history hitting for cycle vs. Orioles
- Can you get the flu in the summer? Your guide to warm weather illnesses
- Chinese woman facing charge of trying to smuggle turtles across Vermont lake to Canada
- Rolling Loud 2024: Lineup, how to stream the world's largest hip hop music festival
- Cristiano Ronaldo Sobs at 2024 Euros After Missing Penalty Kick for Portugal—but Storms Back to Score
- North Carolina police charge mother after 8-year-old dies from being left in hot car
- After 32 years as a progressive voice for LGBTQ Jews, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum heads into retirement
- This was the average Social Security benefit in 2004, and here's what it is now
- Internet-famous stingray Charlotte dies of rare reproductive disease, aquarium says
Ranking
- Which apps offer encrypted messaging? How to switch and what to know after feds’ warning
- Value meals and menus are taking over: Here's where to get cheap fast food this summer
- Utah fire captain dies in whitewater rafting accident at Dinosaur National Monument
- Wimbledon 2024: Here’s how to watch on TV, betting odds and more you should know
- Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow owns a $3 million Batmobile Tumbler
- A harmless asteroid will whiz past Earth Saturday. Here's how to spot it
- Inspectors are supposed to visit all farmworker housing to ensure its safety, but some used FaceTime
- Campaign to get new political mapmaking system on Ohio’s ballot submits more than 700,000 signatures
Recommendation
'Squid Game' without subtitles? Duolingo, Netflix encourage fans to learn Korean
Much of New Mexico is under flood watch after 100 rescued from waters over weekend
Meet the U.S. Olympic women's gymnastics team, headlined by Simone Biles, Suni Lee
New clerk sworn in to head troubled county courthouse recordkeeping office in Harrisburg
Jamie Foxx gets stitches after a glass is thrown at him during dinner in Beverly Hills
Usher honored with BET Lifetime Achievement Award: 'Is it too early for me to receive it?'
Wyatt Langford, Texas Rangers' red-hot rookie, makes history hitting for cycle vs. Orioles
Are banks, post offices, UPS and FedEx open on July 4th? Here's what to know