June 8, 2004

 

Fewer US Farmers Raising Livestock

 

The trend towards fewer, but larger, livestock farms continued in 2003 for both the cattle and hog industries, according to a new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) livestock operations report.

 

The USDA released this spring its first-ever report summarizing the number of cattle, hog and dairy operations in the United States. The numbers were based on the 2002 U.S. Agricultural Census.

 

The USDA said that despite record-high profits last year for cattle producers, the number of cattle operations in the United States declined 2 percent in 2003 to 1.01 million.

 

Specifically, U.S. beef cow operations totaled 792,050 farms in 2003, down 2 percent from the previous year, the USDA said.

 

U.S. milk cow operations declined 5 percent in 2003 to 86,310 farms, which may reflect the low milk prices dairy farmers received last year.

 

Unprofitable hog prices in 2003 also led to a decrease in the number of hog farms. U.S. hog operations totaled 73,600 in 2003, down from 76,250 in 2002, the USDA said.

 

However, University of Missouri agricultural economist Ron Plain said the decline in the number of hog farms has started to slow.

 

Plain said the number of hog operations declined about 3.5 percent in 2003, compared to an average annual decline of 10.4 percent during the 1990s.

 

"This small decline is a bit surprising since both 2002 and 2003 were unprofitable years for hog producers and farm numbers usually drop faster following periods of red ink," Plain said.

 

Larger farms

 

About 8,470 farms (11.5 percent) out of the total 73,600 U.S. hog operations in 2003 were contract growers, the USDA reported.

 

The USDA said 110 hog operations owned more than 50,000 hogs in 2003, accounting for 50 percent of the U.S. hog inventory. Hog operations with more than 2,000 head, which totaled 7,147 farms in 2003, accounted for 77 percent of the nation's hog inventory.

 

This same trend was evident in the dairy industry. The USDA said there were 2,965 dairy farms with more than 500 head. These farms accounted for 40.7 percent of the U.S. dairy cow inventory and 45.7 percent of total U.S. milk production in 2003.

 

Dairy farms with fewer than 50 head totaled 41,670 farms, but accounted for 9.2 percent of the milk cow inventory and 7.2 percent of U.S. milk production, the USDA said.

 

In contrast, the number of beef cow farms with more than 500 head actually declined by about 85 farms in 2003 to 5,330 farms, the USDA said. However, the smaller beef cow farms with fewer than 100 head experienced a more dramatic 13,000-farm decline to 620,550 farms in 2003.

 

The USDA said beef cow farms with more than 500 head accounted for 14.4 percent of the total beef cattle inventory in 2003, while farms with fewer than 50 head accounted for 29.2 percent of the inventory, the USDA said.

 

Iowa farms

 

In Iowa, the number of beef cow operations declined to 25,000 farms in 2003, down from 26,000 in 2002, the USDA said. More than one-half of the Iowa beef cow operations, or 18,000 farms, had fewer than 50 head.

 

Iowa dairy operations totaled 3,000 farms in 2003, down from 3,200 in 2002. Iowa gained 5 dairy farms with more than 500 head, but lost 120 farms with fewer than 50 head, the USDA said.

 

Iowa continues to rank first in the nation in the number of hog operations, with 9,900 farms in 2003. But Iowa lost 100 hog farms last year, the USDA reports.

 

The number of Iowa hog farms with fewer than 1,000 head declined by 300 farms in 2003, while the number of farms with more than 1,000 head increased by 200, the USDA said.

 

Source: USDA