In November 2025, Alex Harrell, among the most highly reputed producers in the U.S., dropped an old-school grading scale, A to F, across his 6,000-acre operation and slashed almost half his ground, notifying 12 landlords in a three-week window. “I can’t speak to the rest of the country, but around here, generational growers are either cutting back, quitting, falling into Chapter 12, or grasping at straws.”
“People don’t realize there was ground here in 2025 that didn’t get planted, but you can already see what’s developing for 2026. Guys are walking away.”
The 2022 Agricultural Census reported 880 million acres of land in US farms, or 75 million fewer acres than the 1997 Agricultural Census (see Figure 2). Cropland and woodland declined by roughly -5 million acres while pastureland declined by -65 million acres. Pastureland accounted for 88% of the total decline. Definitions are nearly identical between 1997 and 2022 (see Data Note 1). Therefore, a change in definition is not explaining the decline of land in US farms.
Since the 1996 Farm Bill’s seminal policy change that gave farmers the freedom to decide which crops to plant or not plant, land in US farms has declined by 75 million acres or -8%.
Most (88%) of the decline occurred in pastureland. It is thus incorrect to equate the loss of farmland to a loss of cropland. Cropland has declined by only -2% while pastureland has declined by -13%
I note a drop in pasture land which I suspect but cannot prove is related to the many dry years we have had in the West.
So is the reduction in crop planted land a local issue or a national trend?
What say ye?
Murky subject, but everything I have seen in the Western USA over the last decade screams pasturelands are undergoing big shifts in climate (drier hotter mostly, and so more marginal), technology (e.g. electronic control of animals replacing fencing), and demand.
“Humanity now stands at Peak Farmland, and the 21st century will see release of vast areas of land, hundreds of millions of hectares, more than twice the area of France for nature,” declared Jesse Ausubel, the director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, in a December lecture. Ausubel was outlining the findings in a new study he and his collaborators had done in the Population and Development Review.
Unlike other alleged resource “peaks,” peak farmland reflects not the exhaustion of resources but the fruits of human intelligence and growing affluence.
Growth in cropland area from 2001 to 2023 was the result of area expansion in Africa (+75 million ha), South America (+25 million ha) and South-eastern Asia (+20 million ha), which was partially offset by contractions in Northern America (−25 million ha), Eastern Europe (−7 million ha) and Southern Europe (−6 million ha).
The area used for growing crops grew significantly from 2001 to 2023. Temporary crops (such as wheat, rice and maize) increased by about 100 million ha, or 11 percent, reaching 1 080 million ha. Permanent crops (such as cocoa, oil palm and coffee) grew by 55 million ha, reaching nearly 200 million ha in 2023, an increase of over 40 percent.