Study says farm consolidation hurts rural areas by limiting opportunities for young farmers, limiting soil conservation

Change in cropland held by large farms. Union of Concerned Scientists maps; click to enlarge.

For decades, rural population has shrunk along with the number of farms and farm families, as farms have gotten bigger. That has changed the landscape of rural America, in many ways not for the better. Now a study from the Union of Concerned Scientists analyzes the change in another way.

Researchers studied farm consolidation trends between 1978 and 2017 and concluded that "rural communities are at risk," Grace Connatser reports for the Wisconsin State Farmer. "The study found that half of the Midwest's midsize farms have disappeared in nearly four decades – nationally, nearly 700,000 – while large farms have increased in scale by about 100 million acres in the same timeframe. A midsize farm is between 50 and 999 acres, while a large farm is 1,000 acres or more."

Those midsize farms are historically the "backbone of the rural economy," said study author Rafter Ferguson. Larger farms aren't a problem in and of themselves, but their proliferation makes it harder for smaller, beginning farmers to compete and be profitable, the study says: "The energy, innovation, and initiative that new practitioners bring are crucial to the future of any profession—and farmers are no different. Our food system is going to be facing huge challenges over the coming decades, and we need an expanding, diversifying, creative community of farmers to meet those challenges. Consolidation operates in exactly the wrong direction."

The study also sees environmental impacts: "Because more farmland in larger farms tends to be rented rather than owned, there is less incentive to invest in measures to improve farmland for the long term by building soil health. In short, when farms grow bigger and farmers grow fewer, bad things happen."

"Ferguson called for a leveling of the playing field for smaller farms compared to large farms because of the challenges associated with trying to run them," Connatser reports. "He said many federal policies in the past have done more to help large farms than small ones."