Mark Brewer 1. We’re a big business …
There are more than 7 billion people on the planet, and all of us need to eat. More than 800 million people are hungry, and the challenge of feeding everyone is only intensifying: We’ll need 60% more food than we currently produce to feed the world’s projected population by 2050, according to the United Nations.
Farmers will have a lot to do to meet that demand. City slickers and suburb-dwellers may not realize it, but farms account for two-fifths of all land in the U.S.— some 915 million acres, according to the Department of Agriculture. They will bring in almost half a trillion dollars in revenue this year.
At the same time, that farmland is being concentrated in fewer hands. The number of individual farms and ranches dropped from 6.8 million in 1935 to 2.1 million in 2012. And most production happens on large farms: In 2012, the biggest 0.5% of farms—those that sold more than $5 million worth of goods — accounted for 32% of the total value of agricultural products sold. In contrast, the bottom 75% — those selling $50,000 a year or less — accounted for only 3% of sales combined.
For smaller farmers, the business has become increasingly difficult. Despite the organic and local food movements, traditional farming has become so costly that many family operations have turned their properties into tourism centers, fueling a side “agritainment” business.
When Steve Paproski, a third-generation farmer in Newtown, Conn., bought the family farm from his uncle in 1980, he sold 100 pounds of milk for $16.50. In 2006, he sold the cows after that price dropped to $11.50 and the dairy business became unsustainable.
“The price of everything has gone up — fuel, grain. Even when they picked up our milk, they charged us more every time the truck driver came up,” Paproski says. “It was a no-win situation. It’s really hard for any farmer to stay in business.” So today, Paproski’s Castle Hill Farm offers corn-maze tours, hay rides and pumpkin-picking and even rents out chickens for children to play “backyard farmer.”
10 things: 10 things farmers won’t tell you
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