From 2000 onwards, the total area of land in U.S. farms has decreased annually, aside from a small increase in 2012. Over the time period displayed, the total farmland area has decreased by over 66 million acres, reaching a total of 878.6 million acres as of 2023.

Farming in the U.S.

Not only has the land for farming been decreasing in the U.S., but so has the total number of farms. From 2000 to 2021, the number of farms in the U.S. decreased from about 2.17 million farms in 2000 to just under 1.9 million in 2023. Texas has more than double the number of farms compared to other U.S. states, with 231,000 farms in 2023.

U.S. agricultural exports

The U.S. is known for agriculture production and is the leading exporter of agricultural products worldwide. The total U.S. agricultural exports were valued at over 178 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Over 4.8 billion dollars’ worth of agricultural exports came from fresh or processed vegetables in 2022.

The total area of cropland in the United States has not changed significantly over the last several years, with only a slight decrease from 257.4 million acres in 2012 to around 253.7 million acres in 2018. The largest decrease in area during that time period occurred between 2014 and 2015.
Crop Diversity in the United States A significant portion of the United States economy is rooted in agriculture. As a large country with a diverse and varied climate, the United States is perfectly suited to producing a huge variety of crops. For instance, much of the tobacco produced in the United States originates from North Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia. However, when it comes to fresh vegetables, California had by far the highest production volume of any U.S. state as of 2018. Facts about U.S. Farms As the largest state in the continental United States, Texas also has the highest number of farms of any U.S. state, at 248 thousand in 2018. Missouri came in second place at 95 thousand farms in that year. Operating and maintaining a farm in the United States is labor intensive, with many different costs and expenses that must be considered in order to keep the farm profitable. As of 2017, around 15.3 percent of total farm production expenditure was attributed to animal feed.

Graph and download economic data for Corn Crop Acreage for United States (A0137CUSA383NNBR) from 1866 to 1951 about crop, corn, and USA.

According to surveys conducted in 2021, most plant nurseries in the United States (28 percent) had an active production area of 100 to 199 acres. Another 19 percent of plant nurseries had an active production area of 500 to 999 acres, but only two percent had more than 1,000 acres in active production that year.

United States Crop Production: Safflower: Yield Per Acre data was reported at 1,256.000 lb in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 1,425.000 lb for 2016. United States Crop Production: Safflower: Yield Per Acre data is updated yearly, averaging 1,333.000 lb from Dec 1997 (Median) to 2017, with 21 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,830.000 lb in 1997 and a record low of 1,069.000 lb in 2006. United States Crop Production: Safflower: Yield Per Acre data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by National Agricultural Statistics Service. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.B068: Agriculture Crop Production.

In 2024, the average value of U.S. farm real estate was 4,170 U.S. dollars per acre. Compared to one decade earlier, the value has increased by almost 40 percent. Generally, the value of U.S. farm real estate has had an upward trend since 1970. U.S. farms The number of farms in the United States has conversely been decreasing each year, reaching about two million farms as of 2022. That year, Texas had the most farms out of any other U.S. state by far, with about 246,000 farms. Missouri and Iowa had the second and third most farms, though neither state exceeded 100,000 farms. Agricultural trade Agricultural products encompass any products from agricultural origin that are meant for human consumption or animal feed. Agricultural products can include livestock products or crops. In 2022, the U.S. exported about 196.4 billion U.S. dollars’ worth of agricultural goods worldwide, increasing from the previous several years. Mexico is a key destination for U.S. agricultural products and imported just over 28 billion dollars’ worth in 2022, more than Europe and Eurasia combined.

Graph and download economic data for Index of Crop Yield Per Acre Harvested, Twelve Crops for United States (A01297USA343NNBR) from 1866 to 1940 about crop, yield, interest rate, interest, rate, indexes, and USA.

In the United States, the federal government manages lands in significant parts of the country. These lands include 193 million acres managed by the US Forest Service in the nation's 154 National Forests and 20 National Grasslands, Bureau of Land Management lands that cover 247 million acres in Alaska and the Western United States, 150 million acres managed for wildlife conservation by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, 84 million acres of National Parks and other lands managed by the National Park Service and over 30 million acres managed by the Department of Defense. The Bureau of Reclamation manages a much smaller land base than the other agencies included in this layer but plays a critical role in managing the country's water resources.The agencies included in this layer are:Bureau of Land ManagementDepartment of DefenseNational Park ServiceUS Fish and Wildlife ServiceUS Forest Service

Brownfields are real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant. This dataset shows the locations of sites, facilities and properties that have been contaminated by hazardous materials and are being, or have been, cleaned up under EPA Brownfields cleanup programs.

The Census of Agriculture highlight key agricultural metrics for US states and counties. Percentage metrics included were calculated as follows: Percent of harvested cropland in cover crops = (cover crops acres)/((harvested cropland)+(failed crops)-(alfalfa))Percent of total tilled cropland using no-till = (no-till acreage)/(no till + reduced till + conventional till)Percent of tilled cropland using conservation tillage = (no till + reduced till acreage)/(no till + reduced till + conventional till)Percent of agricultural land in conservation easement = (conservation easement acres that excludes CRP)/((land in farms) – (CRP WRP FWP CREP acres))Percent of agricultural land in Conservation Reserve Program = (Conservation Reserve Program acres / cropland acres + Conservation Reserve Program acres ))*100Note, that counties for the Census of Agriculture are different than standard US Census Bureau counties; for example, cities in Virginia such as Harrisonburg, VA are rolled into the respective county and counties in Alaska are rolled into regions with their own district/region FIPS codes, etc. Also note, some counties have no data as one or more of the input variables included suppression.These data have been made publicly available from an authoritative source other than this Atlas and data should be obtained directly from that source for any re-use. See the original metadata from the authoritative source for more information about these data and use limitations. The authoritative source of these data can be found at the following location: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2017/Online_Resources/Ag_Census_Web_Maps/Data_download/index.php

NOTE: A more current version of the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) is available: PAD-US 3.0 https://doi.org/10.5066/P9Q9LQ4B. The USGS Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) is the nation's inventory of protected areas, including public land and voluntarily provided private protected areas, identified as an A-16 National Geospatial Data Asset in the Cadastre Theme (https://communities.geoplatform.gov/ngda-cadastre/). The PAD-US is an ongoing project with several published versions of a spatial database including areas dedicated to the preservation of biological diversity, and other natural (including extraction), recreational, or cultural uses, managed for these purposes through legal or other effective means. The database was originally designed to support biodiversity assessments; however, its scope expanded in recent years to include all public and nonprofit lands and waters. Most are public lands owned in fee (the owner of the property has full and irrevocable ownership of the land); however, long-term easements, leases, agreements, Congressional (e.g. 'Wilderness Area'), Executive (e.g. 'National Monument'), and administrative designations (e.g. 'Area of Critical Environmental Concern') documented in agency management plans are also included. The PAD-US strives to be a complete inventory of public land and other protected areas, compiling “best available” data provided by managing agencies and organizations. The PAD-US geodatabase maps and describes areas using over twenty-five attributes and five feature classes representing the U.S. protected areas network in separate feature classes: Fee (ownership parcels), Designation, Easement, Marine, Proclamation and Other Planning Boundaries. Five additional feature classes include various combinations of the primary layers (for example, Combined_Fee_Easement) to support data management, queries, web mapping services, and analyses. This PAD-US Version 2.1 dataset includes a variety of updates and new data from the previous Version 2.0 dataset (USGS, 2018 https://doi.org/10.5066/P955KPLE ), achieving the primary goal to "Complete the PAD-US Inventory by 2020" (https://www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/science-analytics-and-synthesis/gap/science/pad-us-vision) by addressing known data gaps with newly available data. The following list summarizes the integration of "best available" spatial data to ensure public lands and other protected areas from all jurisdictions are represented in PAD-US, along with continued improvements and regular maintenance of the federal theme. Completing the PAD-US Inventory: 1) Integration of over 75,000 city parks in all 50 States (and the District of Columbia) from The Trust for Public Land's (TPL) ParkServe data development initiative (https://parkserve.tpl.org/) added nearly 2.7 million acres of protected area and significantly reduced the primary known data gap in previous PAD-US versions (local government lands). 2) First-time integration of the Census American Indian/Alaskan Native Areas (AIA) dataset (https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2019/AIANNH) representing the boundaries for federally recognized American Indian reservations and off-reservation trust lands across the nation (as of January 1, 2020, as reported by the federally recognized tribal governments through the Census Bureau's Boundary and Annexation Survey) addressed another major PAD-US data gap. 3) Aggregation of nearly 5,000 protected areas owned by local land trusts in 13 states, aggregated by Ducks Unlimited through data calls for easements to update the National Conservation Easement Database (https://www.conservationeasement.us/), increased PAD-US protected areas by over 350,000 acres. Maintaining regular Federal updates: 1) Major update of the Federal estate (fee ownership parcels, easement interest, and management designations), including authoritative data from 8 agencies: Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Census Bureau (Census), Department of Defense (DOD), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), National Park Service (NPS), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The federal theme in PAD-US is developed in close collaboration with the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Federal Lands Working Group (FLWG, https://communities.geoplatform.gov/ngda-govunits/federal-lands-workgroup/); 2) Complete National Marine Protected Areas (MPA) update: from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) MPA Inventory, including conservation measure ('GAP Status Code', 'IUCN Category') review by NOAA; Other changes: 1) PAD-US field name change - The "Public Access" field name changed from 'Access' to 'Pub_Access' to avoid unintended scripting errors associated with the script command 'access'. 2) Additional field - The "Feature Class" (FeatClass) field was added to all layers within PAD-US 2.1 (only included in the "Combined" layers of PAD-US 2.0 to describe which feature class data originated from). 3) Categorical GAP Status Code default changes - National Monuments are categorically assigned GAP Status Code = 2 (previously GAP 3), in the absence of other information, to better represent biodiversity protection restrictions associated with the designation. The Bureau of Land Management Areas of Environmental Concern (ACECs) are categorically assigned GAP Status Code = 3 (previously GAP 2) as the areas are administratively protected, not permanent. More information is available upon request. 4) Agency Name (FWS) geodatabase domain description changed to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (previously U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service). 5) Select areas in the provisional PAD-US 2.1 Proclamation feature class were removed following a consultation with the data-steward (Census Bureau). Tribal designated statistical areas are purely a geographic area for providing Census statistics with no land base. Most affected areas are relatively small; however, 4,341,120 acres and 37 records were removed in total. Contact Mason Croft (masoncroft@boisestate) for more information about how to identify these records. For more information regarding the PAD-US dataset please visit, https://usgs.gov/gapanalysis/PAD-US/. For more information about data aggregation please review the Online PAD-US Data Manual available at https://www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/science-analytics-and-synthesis/gap/pad-us-data-manual .

One-eighth of the United States (247 million acres) is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. As part of the Department of the Interior, the agency oversees the 30 million acre National Conservation Lands system, a collection of lands that includes 221 wilderness areas, 23 national monuments and 636 other protected areas. Bureau of Land Management Lands contain over 63,000 oil and gas wells and provide forage for over 18,000 grazing permit holders on 155 million acres of land.Dataset SummaryPhenomenon Mapped: United States lands managed by the US Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management. Coordinate System: Web Mercator Auxiliary SphereExtent: Contiguous United States and AlaskaVisible Scale: The data is visible at all scales but draws best at scales larger than 1:2,000,000.Source: BLM Surface Management Agency layerPublication Date: November 2023This layer is a view of the USA Federal Lands layer. A filter has been used on this layer to eliminate non-Bureau of Land Management lands. For more information on layers for other agencies see the USA Federal Lands layer.What can you do with this layer? This layer is suitable for both visualization and analysis across the ArcGIS system. This layer can be combined with your data and other layers from the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World in ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro to create powerful web maps that can be used alone or in a story map or other application.Because this layer is part of the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World it is easy to add to your map:In ArcGIS Online you can add this layer to a map by selecting Add then Browse Living Atlas Layers. A window will open. Type "bureau of land management" in the search box and browse to the layer. Select the layer then click Add to Map.In ArcGIS Pro open a map and select Add Data from the Map Tab. Select Data at the top of the drop down menu. The Add Data dialog box will open on the left side of the box expand Portal if necessary then select Living Atlas. Type "bureau of land management" in the search box, browse to the layer then click OK.In both ArcGIS Online and Pro you can change the layer's symbology and view its attribute table. You can filter the layer to show subsets of the data using the filter button in Online or a definition query in Pro.The data can be exported to a file geodatabase, a shape file or other format and downloaded using the Export Data button on the top right of this webpage.This layer can be used as an analytic input in both Online and Pro through the Perform Analysis window Online or as an input to a geoprocessing tool, model, or Python script in Pro.The ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World provides an easy way to explore many other beautiful and authoritative maps on hundreds of topics like this one.

United States Crop Production: Wheat: Yield Per Acre data was reported at 47.500 Bushel in 2018. This records an increase from the previous number of 46.300 Bushel for 2017. United States Crop Production: Wheat: Yield Per Acre data is updated yearly, averaging 37.550 Bushel from Dec 1963 (Median) to 2018, with 56 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 52.700 Bushel in 2016 and a record low of 25.100 Bushel in 1963. United States Crop Production: Wheat: Yield Per Acre data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by National Agricultural Statistics Service. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.B068: Agriculture Crop Production.

State fact sheets provide information on population, income, education, employment, federal funds, organic agriculture, farm characteristics, farm financial indicators, top commodities, and exports, for each State in the United States. Links to county-level data are included when available.This record was taken from the USDA Enterprise Data Inventory that feeds into the https://data.gov catalog. Data for this record includes the following resources: Query tool For complete information, please visit https://data.gov.

United States Long Term Projections: Wheat: Harvested Acres data was reported at 37.200 Acre mn in 2034. This stayed constant from the previous number of 37.200 Acre mn for 2033. United States Long Term Projections: Wheat: Harvested Acres data is updated yearly, averaging 37.200 Acre mn from Dec 2022 (Median) to 2034, with 13 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 38.469 Acre mn in 2024 and a record low of 35.500 Acre mn in 2022. United States Long Term Projections: Wheat: Harvested Acres data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by U.S. Department of Agriculture. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.RI013: Agricultural Projections: Wheat.

Graph and download economic data for Wheat Crop, Yield Per Acre for United States (A0137GUSA254NNBR) from 1866 to 1951 about crop, wheat, yield, interest rate, interest, rate, and USA.

United States Long Term Projections: Corn: Planted Acres data was reported at 88.500 Acre mn in 2034. This records a decrease from the previous number of 89.000 Acre mn for 2033. United States Long Term Projections: Corn: Planted Acres data is updated yearly, averaging 89.500 Acre mn from Dec 2022 (Median) to 2034, with 13 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 94.641 Acre mn in 2023 and a record low of 88.500 Acre mn in 2034. United States Long Term Projections: Corn: Planted Acres data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by U.S. Department of Agriculture. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.RI005: Agricultural Projections: Feed Grains: Corn.

This EnviroAtlas dataset shows the acres of land enrolled in the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)'s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The CRP is administered by the Farm Service Agency; farmers in the program receive annual payments and establishment cost share to remove environmentally sensitive land from crop production and instead plant perennial species that provide environmental benefits. This dataset was produced by the USDA to support research and online mapping activities related to EnviroAtlas. EnviroAtlas (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas) allows the user to interact with a web-based, easy-to-use, mapping application to view and analyze multiple ecosystem services for the contiguous United States. The dataset is available as downloadable data (https://edg.epa.gov/data/Public/ORD/EnviroAtlas) or as an EnviroAtlas map service. Additional descriptive information about each attribute in this dataset can be found in its associated EnviroAtlas Fact Sheet (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-fact-sheets).

Graph and download economic data for Value of Town Acres Sold on Bona Fide Deeds for Ohio (A02290US000OHA550NNBR) from 1877 to 1920 about land, OH, sales, and USA.

United States Crop Production: Lentils: Area Harvested data was reported at 752.000 Acre th in 2018. This records a decrease from the previous number of 1,022.000 Acre th for 2017. United States Crop Production: Lentils: Area Harvested data is updated yearly, averaging 214.000 Acre th from Dec 1986 (Median) to 2018, with 33 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,022.000 Acre th in 2017 and a record low of 71.000 Acre th in 1988. United States Crop Production: Lentils: Area Harvested data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by National Agricultural Statistics Service. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.B068: Agriculture Crop Production.