The Department of Agriculture’s latest Census of Agriculture has generated new fears about “disappearing farm lands.” The census found that the United States had 22 million (2.8 percent) fewer acres of farm lands in 2022 than in 2017 and 40 million (4.3 percent) fewer acres than in 2012. The census is conducted every five years in years ending in a 2 or a 7.
Oregon Public Broadcasting responded to the release by reporting that “Oregon continues to lose farmlands” which “raises red flags for some agricultural land conservation advocates.” However, a closer look at available data is needed before panicking.
Comparing the 2012 and 2022 censuses, Oregon farm lands declined by more than 1 million acres over ten years. However, comparing the 2010 and 2020 population censuses, the number of acres of urbanized lands grew by only about 200,000, or 20 percent of the “lost” farm acres. Where did the other acres go?
We can get some answers to that question from the Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Inventory (NRI), which counts acres of croplands, conservation reserves, pasture, range, forests, other rural, developed, federal, and water by state. Like the Census of Agriculture, the Natural Resources Inventory is conducted every five years in years ending in a 2 or 7. Unfortunately, the 2022 data haven’t been released yet, but we can compare 2007, 2012, and 2017 data with census data from the same years.
According to the Natural Resources Inventory, the number of cropland acres in Oregon actually grew between 2012 and 2017. Most of this growth took place by reducing the number of acres in conservation reserves (a federal program giving farmers tax breaks if they leave farm lands untilled). Acres of pasture declined but most of them went into range. (Pasture is land cultivated for livestock grazing; range is uncultivated land used for livestock grazing.)
Total rural acres declined, but only half the decline was due to development. Most of the rest was due to expansion of the federal land base. Though federal lands are essentially rural, the inventory counts them separately from private rural lands. It would be sadly ironic if land-use zealots spread panic about “disappearing farm lands” when much of that disappearance was due to conservation-oriented federal land purchases.
Both the NRI and the Census of Agriculture are based on survey samples and their numbers don’t exactly agree. The census reports a much bigger decline in farm lands than the NRI. Part of that may be in how the two count forest lands. The NRI counts all forest lands while the census only counts forests that are part of farms. In other words, Weyerhaeuser and other private industrial forest lands are included in the NRI but not the census. If farmers sell some of their forests to non-farm owners, the result is a decline in the number of acres of farms even if the land uses haven’t changed.
As I’ve pointed out before, one reason why croplands are declining is that the per-acre productivities of most major crops are growing faster than the nation’s population. Thus, we need less and less farm land each year even as our growing population needs more and more land for housing and other urban uses.
Both the NRI and census agree that croplands are only a small part of the nation’s agricultural land base. According to the census, only about a third of farmlands are used for growing crops. The NRI says slightly more than a quarter of rural lands (which include forests that aren’t a part of farms) are used as croplands. What this means is that the United States has a huge agricultural base it can draw upon if it needs to, so the conversion of some acres to urban or exurban developments will have no long-term impact on potential food productivity.
Forest lands are similarly abundant. The Forest Service’s latest assessment of the nation’s forest resources found that U.S. forests have a net growth (growth minus mortality) of about 25 billion cubic feet of wood per year, while the nation is cutting only about 15 billion cubic feet of wood per year.
Unscrupulous people are going to use the latest Census of Agriculture to promote more restrictions on urban development, exacerbating the housing crisis. Creating shortages of homes that people need in order to protect farms and forests that are abundant is bad policy. A deeper understanding of farm and forest data will help people defend against such policies.
If you Take care of and Build up the soil, over time. You can farm just about anything. According to Statistical data the USA has
1.1 to 1.6 Billion parking spots. or 6 Million acres
25 million acres Lawn. The Lawn/Garden and Golf industry use 8x more fertilizer than the US Corn and Wheat harvest…. let that sink in.
the 8 Southwest States cover a Million Square miles.
The modern glass greenhouse requires massive inputs of energy to grow crops out of season. That’s because each square foot of glass exposed to the sun; even if it’s in the form of inert gas filled triple glazed. Will subsequently lose ten times as much heat as a wall. But in desert climates, the greenhouse works to preserve Humidity, not heat. However heat loss perceives at night when temperatures rapidly drop to freezing.
Growing crops all year round on solar energy alone as opposed to hydroponic/airponic or industrial laden energy inputs even if it’s freezing outside in technically doable and The solar greenhouse is especially successful in China, where many thousands of these structures have been built, covering hundreds of thousands of Acres.
Far back as medieval and beginning modern era 1700s. Mediterranean crops such as citrus and various fruits and grapes were planted close to specially built “fruit walls” with high thermal mass made rock and compacted dirt, creating a microclimate 10-20 °F) warmer than an unaltered climate.
Later, greenhouses built against these fruit walls further improved yields from solar energy alone. It was only at the very end of the nineteenth century that the greenhouse turned into a fully glazed and artificially heated building. With advent industrial revolution and mass produc-ability of larger glass panes, contemporary and decorative greenhouse was born.
The Chinese, on the other hand, built 1.6 Million acres of passive solar greenhouses since the 1970s. Unlike the western style greenhouse which requires fossil fuel or electric heating in order to be practical at the expense of more energy intensive thus more expensive crops, The passive solar greenhouse distances heavy industrial energy inputs for solar energy gain alone.
The “Chinese passive solar greenhouse”
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/reinventing-the-greenhouse/images/dithers/different-types-chinese-greenhouses_dithered.png
is nothing but a modernized version of what NorthWestern Europe had developed but abandoned. The design uses 3 walls of brick or clay. Only the southern side of the building consists of transparant material (usually plastic layer) through which the sun can shine. During the day the greenhouse captures heat from the sun in the thermal mass of the walls, which is released at night. When the sun sets, an insulated layer is rolled over the transparent screen. In primitive designs straw mats or pressed grasses or waste packed fibers are used. However sophisticated modern versions can use fabric blankets, space blankets (plastic coated aluminum metal foils), this isolates the capacity of the structure to lose heat if so slowly. The incentive policy of the Chinese government has made the solar greenhouse a cornerstone of food production in central and northern China where soil quality is poor and winters oppresive.
US and Canada have opportunity utilize the technology with more modern implements.
In 2005, a Chinese-style greenhouse was tested in Manitoba, Canada, at a latitude of 50° north. WAY higher than most systems, never the less interior temperatures were 32 degrees average warmer than exterior.
Iceland took step forward by integrating designs partially underground take advantage geothermal properties of soil to stay same temperature all year round.
During the first half of the twentieth century, Soviet agronomists were growing citrus/sub-tropical crops in soil and air conditions 30 degrees below zero fahrenheit. Without fossil fuel or glass.
https://thesurvivalgardener.com/russian-ingenuity-growing-citrus-far-beyond-natural-range/
Paving farmland for massive amounts of parking lots (thanks to parking minimums) is absurd.
Not to mention other meaningless planning habits such as heavily separating retail/restaurant from offices and multi-family housing.
Let us also not forget dysfunctional 4-8 lane arterial/collector/stroad routes that fail to function as a highway or street. These middle routes suck which divides neighborhoods, dangerous, hideous, where housing faces the other direction and non-residential buildings have parking in between them. Do not get started with traffic lights! Thankfully the outer fringes of Houston metro area are putting in roundabouts.
Sprawl/Post 1920s planning does not need to be fought with growth boundaries or secondhand transit systems. We need to abolish parking mandates, loosen land-use restrictions, discourage arterial routes being built and focus on roundabouts with a more block-by-block near grid street network.
Some farm land has become solar panel projects. Flat, open land with plenty of sun.
More pavement means less forests, meadows and grasslands, which means less fires every summer! We are seeing more fires burning up suburban neighborhoods in the suburbs, so it’s important to lay down as much pavement as possible to prevent these fires.
Rather than eliminating parking like some urban elitists advocate, we should be laying down ever larger parking lots anywhere close to where people live, to prevent these destructive fires.
Billions wasted on open-gangway subways so that thugs can rob and murder their victims more easily, but as the Antiplanner constantly reminds us, it would be more cost-effective for the MTA to give every subway rider a free car including insurance and gas:
https://new.mta.info/press-release/icymi-governor-hochul-launches-first-open-gangway-train-service-and-announces-1000
Get rid of crappy corn gas:
A quarter of all the corn land in the U.S. is used for ethanol. It’s a land area equivalent to all the corn land in Minnesota and Iowa combined. “The only way ethanol makes sense is as a political issue, said Jason Hill, a bioproducts and biosystems engineering professor at the University of Minnesota.