ShareThisAcross the nation, land devoted to farms and ranches dropped from 938.2 million acres to 922 million acres -- a decrease of 16.2 million acres.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service released a study showing that mid-range farms are being squeezed out of business, taken over by mammoth operations and smaller farms.
"While this does not automatically mean the land has been converted to developed uses, it does mean the agricultural land is no longer in production," Jon Scholl, president of the conservation group American Farmland Trust said. "This comes at a time when there is much discussion about the importance of agriculture and agricultural land in meeting some of the biggest food, fiber, energy and ecosystem challenges our nation faces."
A case study of this trend is Utah, which continues to loose its farmland to development. However, the number of small farms and ranches is increasing, and agriculture sales are up.
Overall, Utah lost more than 636,500 acres of farmland, down 5 percent from 2002. The latest loss comes on top of Utah losing enough farm and grazing land during the past 40 years to exceed the acreage of Delaware and Rhode Island combined
A 2007 agricultural census just released counted 16,700 farms and ranches in Utah, with an average size of 664 acres -- down from 768 acres when the last farm census was taken five years ago.
"There's certainly less farmland, primarily because we're building more homes," said Leonard Blackham, commissioner of the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food. "And it's sad that in certain counties, it's nearly gone."
E-mail Dawn House at dawn(at)sltrib.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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