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Number Of Wisconsin Farms Dropped Slightly Last Year

USDA Numbers Show State Lost 100 Farms, 100,000 Acres In 2015

By
jennefer (CC-BY-NC)

The number of Wisconsin farms decreased slightly in 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, something state officials say reflects a broader trend in agriculture.

The state lost 100 farms and 100,000 acres of farmed land last year, a decline of less than 1 percent.

Greg Bussler, the USDA’s state statistician in Wisconsin, said it’s hard to draw conclusions from a single year’s worth of data. However, he said last year’s high yields combined with low prices for both dairy and crops hurt producers that rely directly on farm income.

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“I think that kind of hurt some of the middle-sized farmers, because they receive less prices but their input costs were higher,” he said.

Wisconsin is following a national trend in agriculture, Bussler added, with small farms becoming more popular and large producers expanding even more, making it harder for mid-sized operations to compete.

Bussler said several factors affect the number of farms and amount of acres farmed each year.

“You have to look at kind of what’s going on as far as production yields,” he said. “And also what the farm income is, the (amount) farmers are receiving. And then you can kind of see trends.”

Bussler said urban sprawl and converting farmland to conservation areas can also affect each year’s numbers.