Looking At The Value Of Agriculture
By John Parker Agriculture accounts for just 8 percent of the carbon emissions in this country, according to a recent report from the United States…
By John Parker
Agriculture accounts for just 8 percent of the carbon emissions in this country, according to a recent report from the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (ERS). This is the lowest of all economic businesses or industries in this country and truly remarkable.
ERS says farming is able to capture carbon emissions, especially carbon dioxide, and store it in crops and various forms of biomass as well as different soil types. Through farming practices such as no-till cultivation and creating grasslands, farming captured 4 percent of the carbon emissions in 2010 according to ERS. Many area farmers practice no-till cultivation and have been planting trees and managing woodlots for years because they know they are good conservation and economic practices that will improve their family income.
But that is only part of the value of today’s family farms. Contrary to what some people say, almost all the farms in the United States – 97.3 percent – are family farms owned by the operator or family members related to the operator. Most family farms, like those in the local area, are small when measured by both acres and sales of less than $250,000 a year. Those with sales of more than $250,000 a year are considered larger farms by the ERS.
Small family farms are important to an area like Geauga County because they are food producers and contribute to the local economy. It is difficult for them, because of their size, to have enough volume of business to provide a decent family income. So, many of them have someone working off the farm to supplement their income or they find a way to go into an intensive kind of farming that brings in more income on the limited acres.
That is where programs such as the grow local-buy local idea come into the picture. They are a more intensive kind of agriculture by growing higher value crops on the available land. At the same time, they can also require more hand labor or are less able to use mechanization to be more efficient.
What is even more interesting is the fact that small family farms make up over 87 percent of the farms in the United States, according to ERS. But the value of what they produce is only about 15 percent of the total value of production in the country. Larger family farms, on the other hand, make up just over 10 percent of the farms but produce over 70 percent of the value of farm production.
This fact illustrates the efficiency of the larger family farms and their ability to use to economics of scale to produce more crops, food and livestock using fewer farm resources to do the job, according to the ERS. Locally, Geauga County has a good mix of both the smaller family farms as well as a number of the highly efficient larger farms.
One other part of the picture is the food and beverage industry in the country. It employs 1.5 million people, about 15 percent of all manufacturing workers, in about 30,000 food plants across the country. They are the ones who take the raw agriculture products and process them into food for people to eat or into ingredients for other products. It is an essential part of the overall agricultural industry.
All the information says that today’s agriculture plays an important part in preserving the environment as well as efficiently producing food and contributing to the economy. Family farms, large and small, are part of that picture, along with the important food processing industry.
Parker is an independent agricultural writer.
