Looking at 1976 and Today
"It is nothing short of amazing to see the new machines in agriculture, and the new techniques. Farms are getting larger, as they should. A…
“It is nothing short of amazing to see the new machines in agriculture, and the new techniques. Farms are getting larger, as they should. A farmer with a couple of tractors, self-propelled harvesters, finishing houses for livestock and a feed mixer with automated feeding equipment can do a great deal more than a farmer with horses, a scoop shovel and hand harvesting. He can easily handle more acres–and he needs to in order to pay for the equipment and meet his increase operating expenses.”
“These are still family farms, as much as they were with ’40 acres and a mule’. The family is still providing the labor and the management. It’s just that the family can do so much more.”
These statements were found in the 1976 issue of the USDA yearbook of agriculture titled “The Face of Rural America.” The yearbook goes on to tell how corn yields doubled in the last 20 years, soybean yields increased three times as much in the past 20 years and wheat yields up 55 percent. The figures illustrate the progress in 1976 that farmers had been making in the last 25 to 30 years in their ability to produce food for dinner tables.
The yearbook further points out that in 1937, farmers produced enough for themselves and 19 others. By 1976, they were producing enough for 57 others and themselves. About 4 percent of the population was feeding the rest of the population.
Let’s fast-forward to 2014 and look at what farmers have done with the help of new technology, feeding practices, farm equipment and their own management ability.
Today, only about 2 percent of people are farmers, and that 2 percent produces enough for about 120 people and themselves. Farms have gotten bigger, as they needed to back in 1976, to pay for the new equipment and technology they use today.
Nationally, the average size farm is about 420 acres, which includes the large farms of several thousand acres found in the west and mid-west. In Ohio the average size farm is about 185 acres, which suggests Ohio is still a state with many smaller farms as well as many of 1,000 or more acres.
Today’s farms in the United States are still mostly family farms. The family owns and manages them with some outside labor on most of the larger farms. Fewer than 5 percent of farms are corporate farms, even though some misinformed sources would like to say otherwise.
Most of the food today is produced on the midsized family farms, those in the 450 to 500 acre size and up with gross incomes of $575,000 a year and up. They are still controlled by the family.
One dramatic illustration of the improvements made in the last 55 years is the milk produced by each dairy cow. Dairy farmers have done a remarkable job of adopting new technology, feeding and manage practices. In 1976, a good cow would produce about 10,000 to 12,000 pounds of milk a year. That is about 1,176 gallons of milk.
Today, each cow produces nearly 20,000 pounds of milk a year, or 2353 gallons. Some more feed is necessary to do this, but farmers have been producing nearly twice the milk with 40 percent fewer cows on fewer acres than in 1976.
At the same time, they have adopted many practices that improve the environment and their farm soils.
When one looks at what farmers have accomplished to keep safe food at reasonable prices on the dinner table, it is truly remarkable.
Parker is retired from The Ohio State University and is an independent agricultural writer.
