The total number of farms in Wisconsin decreased by 300 farms from 2020 to 2021, according to the USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service–Farms and Land in Farms 2021 Summary report, and the total amount of land in farming decreased slightly, by less than 1 percent.
In 2021, Wisconsin had 64,100 farms on 14.2 million acres, down from 64,400 farms on 14.3 million acres in 2020. Wisconsin’s average farm size in 2021 was 222 acres, unchanged from 2020, the report said.
Greg Bussler, state statistician for the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, said it difficult to attribute the decline by pointing to any particular factor.
“From 2020 to 2021, commodity prices improved which resulted in higher land prices,” Bussler said in a written statement. “With the higher land prices, some farmers with small farms or nearing retirement may have decided to sell their land or rent it out.”
The report data shows the decrease in farm numbers occurred among small farms with less than $10,000 in sales.
In a five-year trend from 2017 to 2021, the state experienced a total loss of about 500 small farms (less than $10,000 in sales). Farms in that category saw periods of growth between 2017 and 2019 (from 28,700 farms to 29,000 farms), with decline occurring from 2019 to 2020 (from 29,000 to 28,700) and from 2020 to 2021 (from 28,700 to 28,200).
From 2020 to 2021, “all other sales categories remained the same or had an increase in number of farms,” Bussler said.
The number of dairy farms continue to decline in Wisconsin. From January 2021 to January 2022, Wisconsin lost 399 dairy farms, Bussler said.
“Since 2017, Wisconsin has lost 2,771 dairy farms,” he said. “This was mainly due to low milk prices during this period. In late 2020 and 2021, milk prices rebounded. During this period, the decline in dairy farms also slowed down.”
Dairy farms that stopped milking may not have stopped farming altogether, but may have started raising beef or switched to exclusively crop farm because of strong corn and soybean prices, Bussler said.
While the COVID-19 pandemic may not be the direct cause of the decline in farm numbers, the pandemic did impact the supply chain and the ability of farmers to market their products, he said.
Nationally, the number of farms for 2021 is estimated at 2,012,050, down 6,950 farms from 2020. The number of farms increased in all sales classes except $1,000-$9,999, $100,000-$249,999, and $1,000,000 or more, the report states.
In 2021, 51 percent of all farms had less than $10,000 in sales and 81.5 percent of all farms had less than $100,000 in sales. About 7.4 percent of all farms had sales of $500,000 or more in 2021.
Total U.S. land in farming was 895 million acres, down 1.3 million acres from 2020.
The report states that biggest national change in 2021 is that small producers operated 640,000 fewer acres than in 2020.
Average farm size increased in the $1 million or more sales class and decreased or remained unchanged in all other sales classes, the report said.
The USDA report can be found here.
