States by Number of Farms (2007) (income, live, agriculture)

[missRoxyhart]

I needed to use this information before and I was looking at it again tonight and I thought I could share it here. The info is from the Dept. of Agriculture for the year 2007 and I got it from the link below. It has 2001-07, the numbers may surprise some, or not.

Number of Farms by State, 2001–2007 — Infoplease.com

Texas - 229,000

Missouri - 104,500

Iowa - 88,400
Kentucky - 83,000
Oklahoma - 82,500

Minnesota - 79,000
Tennessee - 79,000
Wisconsin - 76,000
Ohio - 75,700
California - 75,000
Illinois - 72,500

Kansas - 63,800

Indiana - 58,800
Pennsylvania - 58,000
Michigan - 52,800

North Carolina - 48,000
Georgia - 47,500
Nebraska - 47,300
Virginia - 47,100
Arkansas - 46,500
Alabama - 43,000
Mississippi - 41,700
Florida - 40,000

Oregon - 38,300
New York - 34,200
Washington - 33,000
South Dakota - 31,300
Colorado - 31,000
North Dakota - 30,100

Montana - 28,300
(New England - 27,850)
Louisiana - 26,800
South Carolina - 24,700
Idaho - 24,500
West Virginia - 21,400

New Mexico - 18,000
Utah - 15,000
Maryland - 12,000
Arizona - 10,000

New Jersey - 9,800
Wyoming - 8,800
Maine - 7,100
Vermont - 6,200
Massachusetts - 6,100
Hawaii - 5,500
Connecticut - 4,200
New Hampshire - 3,400
Nevada - 3,000
Delaware - 2,200

Rhode Island - 850
Alaska - 660

Does anyone want to do the math and figure out how many farms per person per state that is? I think that would be a neat statistic.

[danielj72]

A great deal of small independent family farms must live on in Missouri. That is the only explantion for the high number of farms in that state. Many other big farming states have a lower number because of all the corporate farms that have swallowed up the family farms. These corporate farms are thousands of acres.

[CowanStern]

The most interesting thing about this table is the list of states where the number of farms is increasing:

Colorado
Montana
Texas
New Mexico
Rhode Island
New Hampshire
West Virginia
South Carolina

[Champ le monstre du lac]

I wonder how skewed these numbers would be by drawing comparisons between small family farms and large scale farming/ranching.

I had the pleasure of driving through Iowa during planting season in April. It was beautiful farmland....

[Ark90]

I wonder how exactly the government defines a farm...

[michigan83]

Originally Posted by caphillsea77

I wonder how skewed these numbers would be by drawing comparisons between small family farms and large scale farming/ranching.

I had the pleasure of driving through Iowa during planting season in April. It was beautiful farmland....

Thanks for posting those pics! I've always liked farm scenery. And Iowa has some of the best farm scenery you'll find anywhere.

[kidphilly]

wonder if acreage would be a better barometer

CA seemed far down and honestly am surprised by TX; is this including cattle?

[CowanStern]

Originally Posted by Ark90

I wonder how exactly the government defines a farm...

That is defined in the link. Anyplace that generates more than $1,000 income per year through agricultural activity. Yes, I believe it includes conventional market livestock. No idea about things like horses or alligators or puppies, but they wouldn't be enough to skew the numbers.

[terrence81]

Originally Posted by kidphilly

wonder if acreage would be a better barometer

CA seemed far down and honestly am surprised by TX; is this including cattle?

I'm not surprised by Texas simply because its a big state. I would imagine that its a hard state to own a farm because the weather in that part of the country seems so fickle going from one extreme to the other.

[sav858]

CA is the #1 agricultural state but clearly ranks pretty far down on the list for # farms considering that. Some of the cattle farms you see off I-5 between Northern and Southern CA in the Central Valley are disgusting. Happy cows don't come from CA as they are usually wading around in their own excrement.