URBANA, Ill. — Of the information released by the USDA on the 2022 Census of Agriculture, one interesting dataset looks at the number of farms and land in farms in the Midwest. A summary of the findings was recently offered by the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Developmental Economics at Ohio State University, and later published by farmdocDAILY.com. 

Among the most compelling findings is that other than Iowa, the eight states examined in the OSU summary — including Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin — experienced a decline in the number of farms between the 2017 and 2022 censuses. Only Iowa saw a boost in the number of places from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold during the five-year period. The number of farms in Iowa increased by 807.

“Illinois experienced the smallest decline, from 72,651 to 71,123, with 1,528 fewer farms over the five-year period. The largest reduction occurred in Missouri, a decline of 7,433 farms. Missouri also had the highest number of farms in both 2017 (95,320) and 2022 (87,887). Michigan had the fewest number of farms, 47,641 and 45,581 in 2017 and 2022, respectively; for a decline of 2,060 farms,” reported OSU researchers Ani Katchova, Suraksha Baral, Rae Ju and Carl Zulauf, in their paper titled “Number of Farms and Land in Farms in the Midwest.”

Though the number of farms increased in Iowa, total land in farms did not. 

The census revealed that Iowa still held the highest land in farms in 2022, with 29.97 million acres, followed by Missouri (27.02m), Illinois (26.29m), Minnesota (25.44m), Indiana (14.6m), Wisconsin (13.78m), Ohio (13.65m), and Michigan (9.47m). All eight Midwest states had fewer acres in 2022 than in 2017. 

In addition, the 2022 Ag Census breaks down the percentage change in the number of farms and farmland acreage over a 20-year period (2002-2022). “Over the 20-year time period from 2002 to 2022, percent change in (the) number of farms ranged from -2.3 percent (Ohio) to -24.1 percent (Wisconsin). For land in farms, the range was -3.0 percent (Indiana) to -12.4 percent (Wisconsin),” the OSU team noted in their summary. 

As for the 20-year trend in land in farms, the percent decline was larger over the longer period.  The average percent decline in the number of farms across the eight states was 11.91 percent for 2002-2022 vs. 4.43 percent for 2017-2022. The average percent decline in land in farms was 6.86 percent for 2002-2022 vs. 2.38 percent for 2017-2022. Only one positive percent change occurred over either time span: the number of Iowa farms over the 2017-2022 period (+0.94 percent). 

“The 2022 Census of Agriculture finds that the 2017-2022 period continued the on-going 21st Century decline in the number of farms and land in farms in US Midwestern states. These trends confirm the concern among agricultural stakeholders and policymakers regarding declining number of farms and land in farms; however, this concern has not yet coalesced into a policy issue on the national and farm bill agendas,” the study authors found.