Source:  USDA NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS SERVICE, 5/28/14
 
This annual full-text file presents data on the number of farms in operation, land in farms, and average size (acreage) of farms for individual states and the U.S.; includes economic sales class estimates for number of farms, land in farms, and average of farms for U.S. and selected states. Also included are data on the number of cattle, hogs, and sheep operations.

2013 Number of Farms and Land in Farms Highlights
The number of farms in the United States in 2013 was estimated at 2.10 million, down 7 thousand farms from 2012. Total land in farms, at 914 million acres, decreased 360 thousand acres from 2012. The average farm size in 2013 was 435 acres, up 2 acres from the previous year.

Farm numbers and land in farms are differentiated by five economic sales classes. Farms and ranches are classified into these five sales classes by summing the sales of agricultural products and government program payments. Sales class breaks occur at $10,000, $100,000, $250,000 and $500,000. Production or commodity price changes in 2013 caused the total value for most livestock and livestock products to increase while the value of many crops declined.

Point Farms are farms that did not have the required minimum $1,000 sales for the year, but had sufficient crops and livestock to normally have sales of $1,000 or more. Point Farms were assigned a sales class based on the sum of the agricultural point (dollar) values assigned to the quantity of commodities produced, but not sold. The 2012 Census of Agriculture showed that 428,810 farms or 20.3 percent of the 2.11 million farms were Point Farms. These Point Farms operated 63.0 million acres or 6.9 percent of the 914.5 million acres of farmland.

Farm numbers decreased by 7 thousand farms during 2013. The number of farms in Sales Class $1,000 - $9,999 declined while all other sales classes were unchanged or increased slightly. Fifty-one percent of all farms have sales less than $10,000. Only eight percent of all farms have sales over $500,000.

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