Family Farming Report
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. The new Farms and Ranches at a Glance Report shows U.S. farming is still a family business.
Betty Resnick, an American Farm Bureau economist, says the report is a project of USDA’s Economic Research Service and National Agricultural Statistics Service …
RESNICK … “The America’s farms and Ranches at a Glance Report describes the characteristics of U.S. farms and ranches. They use data from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey, which is an annual survey of about 19,000 farms.”
Resnick says the report shows a large number of U.S. farms are still owned by families …
RESNICK … “97 percent of all U.S. farms are family-owned, and family farms account for 90 percent of all farm production by value. In addition, 88 percent of all farms are classified as small family farms.”
And, Resnick says the report underscores the financial conditions for U.S. farms …
RESNICK … “It puts high-risk farms as those operating at under a 10 percent profit margin, and low-risk farms operate with over 25 percent profit margin. It's important to note that every category of farms has at least a quarter of farms classified in that category as high risk, which is why the farm safety net provided by the farm bill is so critical to keeping our country's farms in business during volatile times.”
The survey classifies farms into small farms, mid-size, and large, and as both family-owned and non-family-owned.
