With fall finally feeling like it has arrived, farmers across the country are in full swing as they wind down another growing season. Although we are surrounded by farmland, we may sometimes forget that, as a profession, farmers are an elite group.
In 1880, two-thirds of Kentucky’s workforce could be found on a farm, and even 60 years later, the rate was still one in three. By the early 1990s, however, we had largely caught up with the rest of the nation and saw our numbers drop below four percent.
In the early 2000s, there were close to 90,000 farms across the commonwealth, but by 2012 , that had declined to 75,000. Still, these family manage almost exactly half of Kentucky’s total land area.
Early next year, we’ll see how those numbers change when the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) releases its latest five-year farm census.
There’s no indication we’ll see our rankings in various crops and livestock dip significantly, if at all. In 2012, we were among the top 20 states in about a dozen different categories. We were first in horses, second in tobacco and highly ranked in such other commodities as cattle, poultry, hogs, soybeans, corn and wheat.
Looking at raw numbers, Kentucky’s farmers take care of almost 300 million chickens, 2.1 million cows, 400,000 hogs and more than 100,000 goats and sheep. Crop forecasts from last month show us harvesting 214 million bushels of corn this year and almost 120 million bushels of soybeans. Corn’s yield is expected to beat the previous five-year average, while the per-acre yield of soybeans is on track to be the best ever recorded.
While a sizable portion of these crops and livestock stay within the United States, Kentucky also plays a key role when it comes to exports. According to the state’s Department of Agriculture, 80 percent of our tobacco goes to other nations, as does half of our soybeans and one-fourth of our corn. Of all the horses that our country exports, two-thirds started their journey here.
A key reason why agriculture is so strong in Kentucky is that, in 2000, the General Assembly decided to set aside half of its annual tobacco-settlement payments for farming. Since the start of 2001, more than $580 million has been invested in hundreds of different programs and projects.
Those range from an ethanol plant in Western Kentucky and the highly successful Kentucky Proud brand to low-cost farm loans and cost-share programs that make it easier for farmers to improve their land and equipment.
A relatively small but nonetheless important portion of Kentucky’s tobacco settlement money goes to Farms for Food Banks, which rewards farmers who provide surplus produce that is then distributed to families in need. Last fiscal year, the weight of those fruits and vegetables totaled more than 3.2 million pounds, which was enough to help round out five million meals.
While agriculture is arguably as strong and diverse as ever, farmers continue to face a couple of persistent challenges. A study released in May, for example, found that between 1992 and 2012, the United States lost more than 30 million acres to development, with about 11 million of those acres being some of the best farmland we have. That’s about half the size of Indiana.
This past August, meanwhile, the USDA issued a report showing what many farmers know all too well: Their work is not always profitable. In fact, according to the report, less than half of all U.S. farm households made money from their farming activities in 2015. The picture thankfully brightens when taking into account such things as tax-loss benefits and asset appreciation; when those are factored in, 70 percent reported their farms made money.
Those numbers underscore the risk many farm families take so that we all have a safe and affordable food supply and future generations have well-preserved land. No other profession has a bigger impact on our day-to-day lives.
That’s something to be grateful for, of course, and it’s also something we should never take for granted. It’s vital that we never put this enduring accomplishment at risk.
