Farm Acreage Dropped in 2017

The total land in farms for 2017 was down from the previous year according to USDA, despite year-over-year acreage increases in some classes.  Ryan Cowen with NASS says the acres of farmland was estimated at 910 million acres  in 2017, which was down a million acres from 2016.  When looking by sales class, six in total ranging from $1,000 to over $1 million in sales,

"We saw a decrease in those smallest sales classes and then a slight increase in the largest,"

However, the average size of farms in the U-S rose by a modest 2 acres last year.  Cowen says that increase comes mostly from the higher sales class categories.

"The three larges sales classes tended to drive some of that increase, whereas the three smaller sales classes, decreased in average size or else remained unchanged from the previous year."

All told, there were just over 2 million farms in the U.S. last year.