Pictured: Ralston Family Farms, a multi-generational and women-owned rice farming company committed to regenerative practices.
Family farms are the backbone of U.S. agriculture, accounting for 96% of operations and 83% of production in 2023. [1]Small family farms made up the majority of farms (86%) and operated 41% of the farmland, while [2]large-scale family farms were responsible for the largest share of the value of production (48%). That’s according to the latest edition of America’s Farms and Ranches at a Glance, an annual publication by USDA’s Economic Research Service, which provides insights into nearly 1.9 million farms in the [3]48 contiguous U.S. states in 2023.
The data covers production trends, financial performance, participation in Federal agricultural programs, the household income and wealth of family farms, unpriced inventory of stored commodities and precision agriculture adoption.
Key findings for 2023 include:
- Large-scale family farms accounted for the largest share of production for most commodities, including beef, hogs, cash grains and soybeans, cotton, dairy, and specialty crops. In contrast, small family farms and mid-sized family farms led the production of poultry, eggs and hay.
- The adoption of precision agriculture technologies varied by technology and farm type but tended to increase with farm size. The most widely adopted technologies on farms that harvested cropland in 2023 were guidance autosteering and a combination of yield monitors, yield maps or soil maps. Drones were the least widely adopted technologies by these farms.
- Motivations for adopting precision technologies were diverse but broadly consistent with the stated benefits of the technologies. For example, the main reason for farms adopting yield monitors, yield maps, or soil maps was to increase yields (cited by 55%). Meanwhile, saving labor time was the reason for most farms adopting guidance autosteering (50%) and robotic milking (77%).
- The average family farm household has higher income and wealth than the average U.S. household. However, a little over half of farm households (51%) reported negative income from farming, with 85% of family farms receiving most of their income from off-farm sources such as wages and salaries from off-farm jobs.
- Almost a quarter of farms (24%) reported receiving some type of government payment, but participation rates varied. For example, small family farms received three-quarters (76%) of payments from USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program, which removes environmentally sensitive cropland from production and increasingly enrolls grasslands to support grazing operations.
About America’s Farms and Ranches at a Glance
America’s Farms and Ranches at a Glance: 2024 Edition is based on data from the 2023 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), an annual survey of farm and ranch operations conducted by USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).
[1] A small family farm is defined as a family farm with a gross cash farm income of less than $350,000 per year
[2] Large-scale family farms are family farms with gross cash farm income greater than or equal to 1 million dollars per year
[3] This latest USDA ERS data is more current than the 2022 U.S. Census of Agriculture data on family farms, but it differs in scope. The Census encompasses all 50 states, Puerto Rico and outlying areas. (Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands), while the ERS data for 2023 only covers the 48 contiguous U.S. states.