Farming and Farm Income

After peaking at 6.8 million farms in 1935, the number of U.S. farms fell sharply until the early 1970s. Rapidly falling farm numbers during the earlier period reflected growing productivity in agriculture and increased nonfarm employment opportunities. Since 1982, the number of U.S. farms has continued to decline, but much more slowly. In the most recent survey, there were 1.88 million U.S. farms in 2024, down 8 percent from the 2.04 million found in the 2017 Census of Agriculture. Similarly, acres of land in farms continued a downward trend with 876 million acres in 2024, down 3 percent from 900 million acres in 2017. The average farm size was 466 acres in 2024, only slightly greater than the 440 acres recorded in the early 1970s.

Technological developments in agriculture have been influential in driving changes in the farm sector. Innovations in animal and crop genetics, chemicals, equipment, and farm organization have enabled continuing output growth without adding much to inputs. As a result, even as the amount of land, labor, and other inputs used in farming declined, total farm output nearly tripled between 1948 and 2021.

Gross cash farm income (GCFI) is annual income before expenses and includes cash receipts, farm-related income, and Government farm program payments. In inflation-adjusted 2025 dollars, GCFI is forecast at $623.9 billion in 2025, up from $440.6 billion in 2005, with the increase across time primarily due to higher cash receipts. If forecasts are realized, GCFI would increase by 6.8 percent in 2025 relative to 2024.

Gross farm income reflects the total value of agricultural output plus Government farm program payments. Net farm income (NFI) reflects income after expenses from production in the current year and is calculated by subtracting farm expenses from gross farm income. NFI considers cash and noncash income and expenses and accounts for changes in commodity inventories. In 2025, inflation-adjusted NFI is expected to increase by 37.2 percent from 2024 to reach $179.8 billion. Farm production expenses are projected to remain comparable to the 2024 level, increasing by $0.3 billion (or 0.1 percent), after adjusting for inflation.

Crop cash receipts totaled $242.7 billion in calendar year 2024. Receipts from corn and soybeans accounted for $110.2 billion (45.4 percent) of the total.

Cash receipts for animals and animal products totaled $268.6 billion in calendar year 2024. Cattle/calf receipts accounted for $112.1 billion (41.7 percent) of that total, while poultry and eggs receipts accounted for $70.2 billion (26.1 percent), and dairy receipts accounted for $50.7 billion (18.9 percent).

Gross cash farm income (GCFI) includes income from commodity cash receipts, farm-related income, and Federal Government payments. Family farms (where the majority of the business is owned by the operator and individuals related to the operator) of various types together accounted for 96 percent of U.S. farms in 2023. Small family farms (less than $350,000 in GCFI) accounted for 86 percent of all U.S. farms. Large-scale family farms ($1 million or more in GCFI) accounted for about 4 percent of farms and nearly 48 percent of the value of production.

Median total household income among all farm households ($97,984) exceeded the median total household income for all U.S. households ($80,610) in 2023. Median household income and income from farming increased with farm size and most households earned some income from off-farm employment. Small family farms account for 86 percent of total farms, with gross cash farm income less than $350,000. The households operating these farms typically rely on off-farm sources for the majority of their household income. In contrast, the median household operating large-scale family farms earned $414,436 in 2023, and most of that came from farming.

In the United States, 54.9 million acres were irrigated in 2022, down slightly from 56.3 million acres in 1997. This modest decline conceals significant regional changes in recent decades. California’s irrigated acreage decreased from 8.8 to 8.2 million acres between 1997 and 2022, while irrigated land in Nebraska increased from 7 to 8 million acres. Arkansas added more than 1 million acres while Texas saw a decline of nearly 2 million acres. By 2012, Arkansas surpassed Texas as the State with the third-most irrigated acres, behind Nebraska and California. The decrease in irrigated area in the West—where a generally arid climate means most crops require irrigation—primarily reflects surface and groundwater shortages due to drought and groundwater depletion in the face of competing demands for water. In some areas, urbanization has also contributed to this shift. The increase in irrigation in historically rain-fed eastern agricultural regions largely reflects the benefits of irrigation in areas with unreliable rainfall.

U.S. irrigation relies on two main methods: gravity and pressurized systems. Gravity systems move water across a field’s surface through on-field furrows, basins, or poly-pipe using gravity only. Pressurized systems apply water under pressure through pipes or other tubing directly to crops (e.g., sprinkler and micro/drip irrigation systems). In general, pressurized irrigation systems use water more efficiently than gravity systems because less water is lost to evaporation, deep percolation, and field runoff. From 1984 to 2013, the number of acres irrigated using pressurized irrigation systems roughly doubled. Concurrently, the acreage irrigated using gravity systems declined to less than half of 1984 levels in the Western States, where a generally arid climate has required irrigation in many areas. In 2023, pressurized irrigation systems accounted for 75 percent of irrigated acres, up from 69 percent in 2013. However, this increase in acres irrigated was due mainly to a decrease in the use of gravity systems, which declined from 13.5 to 9.8 million acres from 2013 to 2023. Over those 10 years, acres irrigated with pressurized systems also decreased, although not as much as gravity-based systems, from 30 to 29 million acres.

Irrigated agriculture in the United States has expanded substantially since it was first included in the 1890 Census of Agriculture. This expansion reflects private and public investments at the Federal, State, and local levels in infrastructure to deliver surface water to farms and ranches, as well as improvements in well drilling and pumping technologies. However, expansion slowed about 1997 as water supply, infrastructure and land constraints emerged. By 2023, there were 54.9 million acres of irrigated agricultural land in the United States, down from a peak of 58 million acres in 2017 and also below the 56.3 million acres reported in 1997. At the same time, water use intensity—the amount of water applied per acre in acre-feet (1 acre-foot = 325,851 gallons)—has generally declined since 1969. The average water use per acre irrigated was more than 2 acre-feet in 1969 and decreased to a low of 1.49 acre-feet in 2018 before increasing slightly to 1.52 in 2023. The reduction in water use per acre of irrigated land reflects the adoption of pressurized irrigation systems and other improvements in crop needs and water application technologies.