Solving the current operational crisis in small farms is of paramount importance. Most US farms are small – 91% according to the USDA in 2010 (4) and so when small farms fail, that diminishes the core of our farm industry. Woodrow Wilson said after World War I that “If we don’t feed people, we will have to fight them.” For these reasons, it is extremely important to resolve the current operational Farm crisis. (4)
Small farms are failing at a rapid rate, at 1.9 million farms and ranches on 880 million acres of farmland, which is down 2% from 2017 to 2022. (1) A total of only 43% of farms had positive net cash farm income in 2022. This makes a relatively small percentage of farms that turned a profit, (1) and therefore tends to make the small farm crisis worse.
The small farm crisis is fueled by rising costs of farm inputs, such as seeds, fuel, electricity, pesticides, machinery, and fertilizer. (7) The US government wants to be carbon-neutral by 2050 so the government too is adding to price input pressures (3) by increasing competition for green energy and therefore increasing electricity costs.
To help resolve the farm crisis, smaller, less expensive equipment is needed. Autonomous Tractor Corporation (ATC) is planning to sell such equipment.
To further help resolve the farm crisis, fertilizer can be made on the farm by taking nitrogen out of the air through a technique known as the Haber-Bosch process. (6) This requires energy, which can be created by establishing a micro nuclear reactor on the farm. This same reactor can be used to create ammonia fuel for the equipment at a cheaper cost than electricity from the electrical grid. ATC is planning to sell these reactors.
Average farm size is increasing, which tends to make the small farm crisis worse. There were 1.9 million farms and ranches (down 7% from 2017 to 2022) with an average size of 463 acres (up 5%) on 880 million acres of farmland (down 2%). That is 39% of all U.S. land.
The average age of farmers increased to 58.1 from 2017 to 2022, an increase of .6 years (1), which suggests that young farmers are not taking up farming, which in turn makes the farm crisis worse.
The number of farmers with over 10 years of experience increased from 2017 to 2022, which also tends to make the farm crisis worse because it suggests that young people are not becoming farmers. There were just over 1 million farmers with 10 or fewer years of experience, an increase in the number of beginning farmers from 2017 of 11%. Beginning farmers are younger than all farmers, with an average age of 47.1. (1)
Young farmers tend to own larger farms. The number of producers under the age of 35 was 296,480, comprising 9% of all producers. The number of farms with young producers making decisions tended to be larger in both acres and sales in 2022. (1) This tends to make the small farm crisis worse because it increases the size of the average farm in farmers that have the greatest life expectency.
Large farm competition, defined by efficiencies of scale and technology, has been an ongoing challenge for farmers. Corporate farming, defined not by a silo and red barn but by technology and the efficiencies of scale, (2) have proven to be formidable competitors to small farms. This tends to make the small farm crisis worse.
Farm Aid operates a 1-800 hotline for farmers facing crisis, and calls to that hotline were up 109 percent last year (2018) from the year before, says Alicia Harvie, director of Farm Aid’s Advocacy and Farmer Services. (2) This suggests a worsening farm crisis.
Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies were up 12 percent in the Midwest from July of 2018 to June of 2019; they’re up 50 percent in the Northwest. (2) This suggests a worsening farm crisis because small farm bankruptcies are up.
Tens of thousands have simply stopped farming, knowing that reorganization through bankruptcy won’t save them. The nation lost more than 100,000 farms between 2011 and 2018; 12,000 of those between 2017 and 2018 alone. (2) This suggests that the small farm crisis is getting worse because so many farmers have stopped farming.
Farm debt, at $416 billion, is at an all-time high. As of 2019, more than half of all farmers have lost money every year since since 2013, and lost more than $1,644 this year (2019). Farm loan delinquencies are rising. (2) This suggests a worsening farm crisis because farm debt is so high.
Farmers have always talked of looming disaster, but the duration and severity of the current crisis suggests an alarming and once unthinkable possibility — that independent farming is no longer a viable livelihood (2019). Small farms, defined as those bringing in less than $350,000 a year before expenses, accounted for just a quarter of food production in 2017, down from nearly half in 1991. In the dairy industry, small farms accounted for just 10 percent of production. The disappearance of the small farm would further hasten the decline of rural America, which has been struggling to maintain an economic base for decades. (2) This makes the farm crisis worse because it damages small town communities.
President Trump’s trade war hasn’t helped matters. After the United States slapped tariffs on Chinese goods including steel and aluminum last year, China retaliated with 25 percent tariffs on agricultural imports from the U.S. China then turned to other countries such as Brazil to replace American soybeans and corn. Agricultural exports between January and August this year (2019) were down 5 percent, or $5.6 billion dollars, from the same period last year. The Trump administration has made $16 billion in aid available to farmers affected by the trade war, though small farmers complain the bulk of the money has gone to huge producers with large crop losses. Around 40 percent of the $88 billion in farm income expected this year is going to come in the form of federal aid and insurance, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. Farm income absent that assistance, at $55 billion, is down 14 percent since last year and is half of what it was in 2013. (2018) (2) This makes the small farm crisis worse because it reduces farm income.
Smaller farms have found it especially hard to adapt to these changes, which they blame on government policy and a lack of antitrust enforcement. The government is on the side of big farms, they say, and is ambivalent about whether small farms can succeed. “Get big or get out,” Earl Butz, Nixon’s secretary of agriculture, infamously told farmers in the 1970s. It’s a sentiment that Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary under President Trump, echoed recently. “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out,” Perdue said, at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin in October. The number of farms with more than 2,000 acres nearly doubled between 1987 and 2012, according to USDA data. The number of farms with 200 to 999 acres fell over that time period by 44 percent.(2) This makes the small farm crisis worse because it favors large farms.
Many small American farmers are routinely selling their crops for less than it costs to produce them. “It’s very intimidating, you work hard every day, and every day, it seems like you’re just always struggling,” says Mary Rieckmann, a dairy farmer in Wisconson. (2019) (2) This makes the small farm crisis worse because it reduces farm profit.
Heavy rain and unseasonable snow this year have also hurt many Midwestern farmers. This year “has been one of the most significant weather event years,” said John Newton, chief economist of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Portions of Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota experienced record flooding this year, with the upper Mississippi River receiving 200 percent more rain and snow than normal. Unusual rain and snow prevented farmers from planting on 19 million acres this year, (2019) the most since the USDA began measuring in 2007. Last year (2018), by contrast, weather prevented planting on just 2 million acres. (2) This makes the small farm crisis worse because it reduces the amount of available farmland and also the predictability of profits.
Most family farmers seem to agree on what led to their plight: government policy. In the years after the New Deal, they say, the United States set a price floor for farmers, essentially ensuring they received a minimum wage for the crops they produced. But the government began rolling back this policy in the 1970s, and now the global market largely determines the price they get for their crops. Big farms can make do with lower prices for crops by increasing their scale; a few cents per gallon of cow’s milk adds up if you have thousands of cows. (2) This makes the small farm crisis worse because less subsidies reduces farm income.
The energy crisis, including sanctions on Russian oil, has an effect on our food supply. The war in the Ukraine is driving up energy prices, which have spillover effects on food supply chains via rising energy bills and soaring fertiliser prices. Globally interconnected supply chains and markets for food and associated inputs (agrochemicals, fertiliser, fuel, feed, capital and labour) mean that seemingly small supply disruptions in one region or sector can lead to dire consequences in another. (5). Again, part of the solution to America’s farm crisis lies in using smaller, less expensive equipment. Part of the solution also lies in adding digital technology to existing tractors by retrofitting them with digital technology. ATC can convert tractors or enable the farmer to do it with digital conversion kits. This makes the small farm crisis worse because it increases the cost of the farming input of energy.
For these reasons, America’s small farms are in crisis and solving this crisis is an extremely important goal. Part of the solution rests in small, micro nuclear reactors being constructed on farms for fuel, fertilizer, and electricity. Identifying the problems is step one. ATC is on step two – fixing he problems which it will provide next, including electronic farm equipment, guidance technology, energy requirements, and verbal control of farm equipment..
(1) https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2024/02-13-2024.php
(2) https://time.com/5736789/small-american-farmers-debt-crisis-extinction/
(4) https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/blog/small-farms-big-differences