‘America is a factory farming nation’: key takeaways from US agriculture census

Small farms and Black farmers are going out of business, while corporate-controlled farms are booming, raking in subsidies

Record numbers of US farms are going out of business with small farms and Black farmers the hardest hit - again, according to the 2022 agriculture census, a comprehensive snapshot of the state of America's farms and farmers published every five years by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Yet industrial factory farms rearing thousands of livestock in confinement have further expanded into rural America, acquiring smaller farms, raking in taxpayer subsidies and generating environmental harms.

The agriculture census is a mammoth data collection effort involving more than a million farmers, which tracks the number, size and types of farm across sectors, as well as the farmers and the financials - at the national, state and county levels. It provides insights into the impact - good and bad - of government programs on farmers, workers, land use, animals, waterways and the climate, and should inform future policy. The latest data set includes the Covid pandemic - an extraordinary time when global food prices, government farm subsidies and food insecurity all surged.