A new USDA analysis of farm finance data found that farms with at least $1 million in gross cash farm income accounted for more than half of government payments in 2020, including pandemic aid.
The study by USDA’s Economic Research Service also says that 6% of U.S. farms would have lost money in 2020 without payments through the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program.
The report also said that the pandemic was “a period of increased demand for the purchase of cropland and pastureland.”
From 2019 through 2021, the inflation-adjusted value of cropland and pastureland increased by 2.2% and 0.2%, respectively. Those were the first increases in inflation-adjusted values for cropland since 2014 and for pastureland since 2015, the report said.
Some 2.9 million acres of cropland and 2.4 million acres of pastureland were sold annually between 2019 and 2020, an 11% increase for cropland from 2017-18 levels and a 12% increase for pastureland, the study said.
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