Every five years, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) does a “Census of Agriculture” to look at agriculture in the United States.
They gather a lot of statistics from farmers, which they then put into reports describing the state of agriculture in our country. And they compare the current statistics with the five-year-old statistics to determine trends.
The statistics are getting scary. The trends are scary. All Americans should be concerned as agriculture is where our food comes from.
Unfortunately, American family farmers are being forced out and the American public is starting to feel it as we become more dependent on foreign countries to supply our food.
Food is shipped here from around the world where it is raised under conditions not allowed in the U.S. Produce is picked before it is ripe and then ripened artificially as it travels. Our foods are grown thousands of miles away under different conditions and with different environmental influences so it does not have the same nutritional and immunity properties as food grown here in the U.S.
The most healthful foods are raised close to where the consumer lives, exposed to the same climate conditions and allergens, and ripened before picking. All of us who grow our own food know the major difference in flavor and texture of tomatoes out of our own gardens as compared to those from a chain grocery store.
Truly fresh green beans, for instance. When I do my first picking every year, that night my dinner is green beans. That is it! I will cook an entire pan of green beans, add a little salt and butter, and I pig out.
Fresh summer squash and carrots pulled out of the garden and eaten within minutes — there’s nothing better. I prepared cooked carrots one time quite a few years ago for dinner guests who then asked what they were eating.
They would not believe me when I said “cooked carrots.” They had eaten cooked carrots before and didn’t like them. It took some talking to convince them that they had just eaten carrots that had been growing in the garden maybe less than two hours before they ate them.
Fresh does taste better.
Sorry — I digress — back to the statistics.
Even though they may not be super interesting, they are important to understand. So, the statistics the USDA released this spring are actually based on 2022, as it takes a year to gather the information from farmers and then another year to compile the statistics into formats that make sense and then get them published.
Raw facts about U.S. agriculture in 2022 as compared to 2017:
1. 32,076 farms. Down 10%.
2. 13,855,414 acres of land. Down 6%.
3. The average farm is 432 acres. Up 5%.
These statistics show that small family farms are “going under” and being consumed by other farms trying to survive by getting larger.
Why are we losing family farms?
Farm production expenses increased by 31% overall and, when calculated on a per farm average basis, production expenses went up 46%. So, expenses have soared (and the last two years since these statistics were gathered have only gotten worse) while the price farmers sell at has, in many cases, gone down. You may have seen or heard about the farmer protests in Europe where governments are crushing farmers. It is happening here, too.
Looking at 2022 statistics: 43% of farmers sold less than $2,500.
How can that be?
How can they be making a living farming? The simple answer is, they can’t. These are farmers who want to farm — they want to feed people — but they cannot afford to buy enough land and the needed equipment to go “large scale,” so they have full-time jobs and work their farm evenings and weekends. Some people call them “hobby farmers'' because it is not their full-time job. They are farming because they love it, and many hope to grow their operation so that someday it can be a fulltime job.
In the meantime, they do what they can to get by. So as not to bore you with all the statistics, I will jump to the highest income bracket — those earning $100,000 or more in a year. For them, that number is 18%. They are earning $100,000 a year. That seems like a lot of money, until you start taking out all the expenses and remember the additional costs, and the “little details” like no health insurance (they don’t work for someone who provides health insurance to them and their family), no paid holidays (no holidays off even), no vacation time (literally) no retirement fund contributions — the list goes on.
Let’s keep looking at Washington: 3% farm organically; 11% of our farmers sell directly to consumers; 29% hire labor (remember most farms are family farms); 86% have internet access (remember COVID-19 and schools being shut down? Farmers had to haul their children somewhere to get internet access so they could do their schoolwork while schools were closed); and 94% are family owned.
About 58% of Washington farmers are male (but this statistic is a bit skewed in my opinion, as traditionally the male is the “head of the household” and so it is reported as being owned by a male, but the wife is right out there working alongside her husband — and it may be a similar situation for the female-owned farms). Fifty-two percent of Washington farmers are 35 to 64 years of age and 41% are 65 and older. This is a sobering statistic as farmers are aging out and that knowledge and expertise is sometimes being lost. A glimmer of hope is that 28% of Washington’s farmers are what are called new and beginning farmers, so we do have a future.
Some interesting facts: Washington represents 2% of all U.S. agriculture sales and out of the 50 states, ranks No. 8 in overall crop production. We are No. 1 in aquaculture, No. 2 in fruits, tree nuts and berries, No. 3 in vegetables, melons, potatoes and sweet potatoes, No. 4 in Christmas trees, No. 4 in hay, No. 9 in milk from cows, No. 11 in nursery, greenhouse, floriculture and sod, and No. 14 in cattle and calves.
Yakima County has the largest number of acres in farmland, followed by Whitman, Lincoln, Grant and Adams counties. The highest number of acres is in wheat followed by hay, vegetables and then apples and potatoes.
When we talk livestock, as of Dec. 31, 2022, we had 6,024,276 laying hens, 5,226,564 broilers/meat chickens, 1,243,674 pullets (seems there are a lot of chickens running around in Washington — many of those right here in Lewis County), 1,123,261 cattle, 44,968 horses, 44,421 sheep;, 26,642 goats, 17,707 hogs and 5,805 turkeys.
That’s a lot of information, interesting to some, important to all of us who eat food. If you want more statistics, you can go to www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus to get your fill.
I hope this wasn’t too boring and maybe will open some eyes.
My next commentary will focus on the information specific to Lewis County.
•••
Maureen Harkcom is president of the Lewis County Farm Bureau. She can be reached at maureen.harkcom@gmail.com.
