One in four farmers has 10 years of experience or less, according to the newly released 2017 Ag Census. This number is in stark contrast to the average age of a farmer, 57.5, which alludes to decades of experience.
The Census is the most complete data set on U.S. agriculture, and it highlights everything from the amount of farmland in production to the number of farmers who have access to internet.
New and beginning farmers, as the USDA identifies them, grow crops and raise livestock on 193,405,614 acres of farmland. But only 58,944 of the them have farms with 500 acres or more. This demonstrates that most these folks own smaller farms, many of them producing specialty crops. However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t making money. New and beginning farmers contributed $88,058,146,000 of market value to the agriculture economy in 2017.
Most of these newer farmers live on their farms—603,699. But more than half, 477,974, work 200 days or more off the farm. Just 212,404 work on the farm full time. Most of their farm businesses, 487,022, support their household alone. Fifty-nine percent of the producers are male, and 41% are female. Their average age is 46.3.
Want to learn more about the data and trends from the 2017 Census of Agriculture? Visit AgWeb.com/AgCensus2017
