The Trend Towards Fewer and Larger Farms as Economic Growth Occurs
The structure of US agriculture has been shaped towards less but the
farms are larger. In the early times of this country, people could make a
living on the 160 acres they had received from The Homestead Act of 1862. This
act gave families clear titles to 160 acres if they had lived on it for five
years. Though in today's changing world farmers have been forced to increase
the sites of their operations or go out of the farming business. The farming
business is a way of life to most of those who do it and do not want to quit
doing it now but with the off of the farm incomes increasing all of the time it
is making farmers change their way of life.
The Agriculture Economics and Agribusiness textbook, sixth addition,
says that there are three classifications of farms by economic size. The first
classification is the expanding sector . This sector sales more than $100,000
per year of farm products, it is 16% of the farms in the US. It also produces
80% of all of the farm outputs or products in the US. The farms in this sector
produce nearly all of the farm products produced the US but are only contribute
to small parts of the farms in the US. The expanding sector of agriculture
numbered 271,000 farms in the 1980's. This number increased to 326,000 farms by
1991. The off of the farm income of this sector is only $20,847 per farm. The
total income per farm averaged $180,276 per year. This sectors main income
comes from farming and very little of its income com ...