Driving the rural highways of Illinois reveals mile after mile of corn, soybeans, and wheat. Recently I traveled to California and was driving on a long highway in the central part of that state. It was similar to the highways in my home state of Illinois, flat with small towns scattered along the way. However, the only crops I saw were irrigated almonds, grapes, and oranges. Around the edges of the fields, nothing without irrigation was green, not even weeds.
This got me thinking about perspective: We often don't know much about the overall farm landscape in faraway states. The range and variation of income and farm size is wide, as evidenced by comparisons of farm income, farm size, and crop production in different states based on USDA data for 2019.
The state with the largest number of farms, by far, was Texas with 247,000 farms and 126 million acres of farmland and ranches. However, the largest number of farms and greatest number of acres of farmland did not yield the highest net farm income, which at a little over $5.5 billion collectively earned Texas only second place.
California put up $10.9 billion in net farm income coming from only 69,000 farms. Obviously, those are some large and profitable farms, because average net income per farm was about $158,000. At the other end of the net income spectrum is Alaska, where farms collectively netted a loss of $5.5 million, about $5,200 of loss per farm. No other state showed a cumulative net farm loss for 2019. Surprisingly, the largest state (Alaska) has even fewer farms than the smallest state (Rhode Island): 1,050 versus 1,100.
Rounding out the top five in farm net income per state are Nebraska with $4.1 billion, Iowa with $3.2 billion, and Washington with about $3 billion. The last one surprised me. Washington producers grow close to $2 billion worth of apples, and those apples are profitable, since Washington is only 12th in total farm cash receipts but fifth in farm net income. Farmers in Washington also raise cattle and produce a lot of dairy products and potatoes.
The tropical paradise of Hawaii is ahead of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Alaska in farm net income with $111 million. A drive around the big island reveals thousands of acres of cattle plus goats and chickens wandering along the edge of roads. Hawaii's 7,300 farmers working 1.1 million acres also grow macadamia nuts, coffee, papaya, and avocados.
Where Are the Farms?
Another surprise to me were the top states in number of farms. After Texas, Missouri had the second largest number of farms with 95,200. Divide the $2.3 billion in farm net income by that number, and it's only $24,200 per farm. Third was Iowa, as one might expect, with 85,300 farms. Numbers four and five were Ohio with 77,800 farms and Oklahoma with 77,300. I was surprised that Nebraska, with the third highest farm net income, only has 45,700 farms, which is 18th in number of farms. The state has a large average size of farm at 983 acres.
The number of acres of farmland by state was intriguing as well. Texas towers above all other states in number of acres, more than twice as many as second-place Montana with 58 million acres of farmland. As expected, Montana's top crop is cattle ($1.35 billion in cash receipts), but the wheat and hay income combined exceeds cattle revenue. Kansas is third with 45.7 million farmland acres. Cattle lead in cash receipts ($8.4 billion), but Kansas farmers also grow a lot of corn, soybeans, wheat, and grain sorghum, nearly $6 billion worth collectively. Rounding out the top five in farm and ranch acres are Nebraska with 44.9 million acres and South Dakota with 43.2 million acres. South Dakota has very balanced farm production between animals and grain at about $3.5 billion in cattle and hogs and about $3.8 billion in corn and soybeans combined.
The smallest three states in number of acres are New Hampshire with 430,000 acres, Connecticut with 380,000 acres, and Rhode Island with only 60,000 acres. Some individual farms in the Heartland are bigger than the entire inventory of farm acres in the State of Rhode Island. In fact, Bill Gates owns six Rhode Islands worth of farmland.
Ranking states by gross farm cash receipts reveals California with almost $50 billion, followed by Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, and Minnesota. (See the chart, above.) On a gross receipt basis, dairy products are the biggest crop for California. Corn is the top crop for Iowa and Minnesota, and cattle the biggest part of cash receipts for Nebraska and Texas. Most of the crops of the top production states are the usual suspects. However, Texas is also producing more than $2 billion a year in cotton and over $2 billion in broilers (chickens).
Perspective of Farm Size and Type
Other notable crops among the top 10 production states are turkeys in North Carolina and chicken eggs in Indiana. Hogs are not the top crop in any of the top 10 production states, but they are a major component of cash receipts in six of them: Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, North Carolina, and Indiana.
Another interesting statistic is that farm net income as a percentage of gross receipts is generally higher in the 10 states with the least farm production. Apparently, in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire margins are higher on crops such as flowers, vegetables, cranberries, melons, and turkeys — over 40% to net income on average. When you are farming 70 acres total, you need efficient crops.
While traveling around the country, I have noticed a big difference in what is considered a "large" or a "small" farm. In Kanawha County, West Virginia, where I was born, you're lucky to find 5 flat acres. Twenty acres would be considered an enormous field. However, in Illinois, 20 acres is barely enough to entice a grain farmer to rent it. A quarter section (160 acres) is considered a decent-size field in southern Illinois, but in eastern Colorado a nonirrigated quarter section is considered a pip-squeak, barely worth messing with. On the flip side, the grain farmers I know in Illinois can't imagine managing a 70,000-acre cattle ranch in Colorado or farming 10,000 acres of wheat by themselves. It's all about perspective. The average farm size in China is just an acre or two, and they make a living on that.
Bottom line, people are farming millions of different situations in millions of different ways.
