14 findings from ERS family farm report

USDA’s Economic Research Service recently released a report, America's Diverse Family Farms: 2018 Edition. This report provides an overview of U.S. farms, including the latest statistics on production, financial performance, and farm household characteristics by farm size categories.

Among the findings:

1. 98% of U.S. farms are family farms, and they account for 87% of farm production
2. Small farms make up 89% of the farm count and operate half of the farmland. Small farms have gross cash farm income of less than $350,000.
3. One-third of U.S. farm output is produced under contract, but the share differs by commodity.
4. The median income for U.S. farm households was higher than the median income for all U.S. households in 2017.
5. Large-scale family farms accounted for 39% of production. Large-scale family farms have gross cash farm income of $1 million or more.
6. 15% of nonfamily farms had gross cash farm income of $1 million or more, and they accounted for 89% of nonfamily farms’ production. Examples of nonfamily farms include partnerships of unrelated partners, closely held nonfamily corporations, farms with a hired operator unrelated to the owners, and (relatively few) publicly held corporations.
7. Large-scale family farms accounted for more than two-thirds of dairy production and more than half of high-value crops like fruits and vegetables.
8. Midsize and large-scale family farms dominate cotton production, with large-scale farms contributing over half of production and midsize farms an additional one-third. Midsize and large-scale family farms both accounted for over one-third of total cash grain/soybean production, for a combined total of 72 percent.
9. Small and large-scale farms together accounted for 60% of beef production in 2017. Small farms generally have cow/calf operations, while large-scale farms are more likely to operate feedlots.
10. Small farms produce 60% of U.S. poultry output. Much of poultry production is done under production contracts.
11. Small farms produce 76% of hay production.
12. More than half of U.S. production of peanuts, tobacco, sugar beets, hogs, and poultry/eggs in 2017 were under contract.
13. Hogs produced under contract nearly doubled from 34% n 1996/97 to 63% in 2017.
14. 8% of U.S. farms have contracts. Two-thirds of the value of U.S. farm production is sold without contracts.

Differences among farm types are illustrated in this report using 2017 data from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey, an annual survey conducted by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service and ERS. The analysis in this report is based on a sample of approximately 21,000 farms.

Source: USDA Economic Research Service