The 2022 Census of Agriculture, released Feb. 13, reveals fewer farms and less farmland in the U.S.

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack focused on those two points during a press conference “because I’m concerned about the state of agriculture and food production in this country,” he said.

The U.S. has lost 142,000 farms and 20 million acres since the last census in 2017, he said.

“This survey … is a wakeup call,” he said.

“This survey is essentially … asking the critical question of whether as a country are we OK with losing that many farms, are we OK with losing that much farmland or is there a better way,” he said.

Farm policy

The survey raises question about the policy formation or direction the country needs to take to correct or deal with some of the challenges, he said.

“Fortunately, we’ve begun that process, and this survey reinforces some of the steps that we’ve begun to take,” he said.

“Rather than focusing solely on productivity, as important as that is, it’s important as well to create new ways for farmers to make a living,” he said.

The majority of U.S. farmers require off-farm income to keep the farm. A better way would be creating multiple revenue streams on the farm, he said.

“That’s why it’s important for us to invest in climate smart agriculture because that creates an opportunity for farms to qualify potentially for ecosystem service market credits, which is cash coming into the farm for environmental results that can occur only on the farm,” he said.

Bioproducts

It’s important to continue to promote bioproduct production to transition agricultural waste into its own commodity such as sustainable aviation fuel, he said.

Another revenue stream might be direct-to-consumer sales. Farmers get less than 15 cents of every retail dollar for groceries. Accounting for the cost of production, the farmer ends up with 7 cents, he said.

Vilsack said he appreciates the hard work that went into the census and the number of farmers – more than 1 million – who responded.

The question now is what will policymakers, USDA and Congress do with the information and what they should do, he said.

Opportunity

“My hope is that what we do … is we send a strong message that we think there is an opportunity if they will join with us in creating a different model, one that acknowledges and recognizes the importance of production agriculture,” he said.

That message should acknowledge the significant investment people have made in very large farms. But it should also be a message of hope and opportunity to smaller and mid-sized operations by giving them multiple sources of revenue coming in from the farm, he said.

The benefits of preserving small and mid-sized farm operations go beyond agriculture, supporting small town schools, businesses and hospitals, he said.