Reviewed September 2026 against USDA NASS, USDA Economic Research Service, and Statistics Canada.

Try it: Run your own numbers →

American agriculture in the United States runs on 1.88 million farms working 876.46 million acres, per USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) 2024 count. The average US farm covers 469 acres as of 2025. North of the border, the Canadian agriculture system generated $98.1 billion CAD in total farm cash receipts in 2024, according to Statistics Canada — a different scale and structure from the US industry, but part of the same North American picture this article covers.

This is a numbers-first look at the american agriculture industry: how many farms exist, what they grow, what those crops yield per acre, who works the land, and what they’re paid. Every figure below carries its source and the period it covers, plus where to check for a more current number when one is published.

Contents

How Many Farms: US Farm Structure and Size

USDA NASS counted 1.88 million farms in the United States in 2024, covering 876.46 million acres of total farmland, according to its Farms and Land in Farms 2024 Summary. The average farm size was 469 acres as of 2025 — a figure that has drifted upward for decades as smaller operations consolidate into larger ones, even as total farmland acreage has stayed roughly flat.

That average masks enormous range. A market-garden vegetable operation in the Northeast might run 20 acres; a wheat and cattle operation on the Northern Plains can span tens of thousands. NASS’s farm-size distribution tables (in the same annual release) break the 1.88 million farms into size classes — this is the number to pull directly if you need the distribution rather than the mean, since a single average acre figure hides that split.

Why the Farm Count Matters for “American Agriculture Industry” Searches

Anyone researching the american agriculture industry as a whole — for policy, investment, or general reference — usually wants three anchors first: how many farms, how much land, and how that compares to a generation ago. NASS’s Census of Agriculture (conducted every five years, most recently for 2022, with the next full census due in 2027) is the deepest version of this dataset; the annual Farms and Land in Farms report cited above is the yearly update between censuses.

What American Farms Grow: Corn, Soybeans, Wheat

The three row crops that dominate US cropland acreage each hit distinct marks in USDA NASS’s final 2024 Crop Production report. Corn yielded 183.1 bushels per acre nationally, totaling 15.1 billion bushels produced. Soybeans yielded 50.7 bushels per acre for 4.37 billion bushels. Wheat — grown across winter, spring, and durum classes — yielded 52.2 bushels per acre for 1.98 billion bushels.

Full detail, including state-by-state breakdowns: USDA NASS Crop Production, final 2024 estimates.

On price, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s CropWatch service put its Nebraska-average soybean forecast at $9.95 per bushel for the 2025 crop year, in its 2025 crop values outlook. That figure is a state-average forecast for one crop year, not a national price and not a spot cash price — for a live national number, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) publishes daily and weekly grain price reports at ams.usda.gov/mnreports, and USDA’s monthly WASDE report carries season-average price forecasts for corn, soybeans, and wheat. Neither corn nor wheat had a comparably specific price figure in the research for this piece; check AMS or WASDE directly for the current season-average forecast on those two.

Beyond the Big Three: What the Yield Numbers Don’t Cover

Cotton, rice, sorghum, specialty crops (fruit, vegetables, nuts), and livestock (cattle, hogs, poultry, dairy) round out the rest of US agricultural output and aren’t reflected in the corn/soy/wheat figures above. USDA NASS’s Crop Production and Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry reports cover those separately — both are released on a regular schedule at nass.usda.gov, so a reader who needs sorghum or cattle numbers should pull the corresponding NASS release rather than assume it tracks the row-crop trend shown here.

Agriculture in American Neighbors: Canada’s Numbers

“American agriculture” read broadly covers the continent, and Canada is the clearest comparison point with published, comparable statistics. Statistics Canada reported total farm cash receipts of $98.1 billion CAD for 2024, of which $52.2 billion CAD came from crop receipts specifically — the remainder from livestock and program payments, per its 2024 farm income release.

On production, Statistics Canada’s separate 2024 field crop production report put Canadian wheat production at 35 million tonnes for 2024 — grown predominantly across the Prairie provinces (Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba). That’s a tonnage figure, not bushels, and not directly comparable to the US wheat production number above without a unit conversion; treat the two as separate national totals rather than adding them together.

For UK readers: this research turned up no DEFRA or ONS agricultural production and employment figures directly comparable to the USDA/Statistics Canada data above (see the gap noted below). The UK’s equivalent releases are DEFRA’s annual “Agriculture in the United Kingdom” report and the ONS agricultural census — both published through gov.uk, and both worth checking directly for current UK farm counts, output, and labour figures rather than inferring them from the US/Canada numbers on this page.

Who Works the Land: Employment and Wages

USDA’s Economic Research Service put total US farm employment — operators plus hired labor — at 1.18 million workers for 2024. Within that, USDA NASS’s farm labor survey counted 637,000 hired farm workers during its April 2025 reference week. The gap between the two figures is the operator/family-labor share of the 1.18 million total, which the hired-worker count alone doesn’t capture.

On pay, NASS’s farm labor report set the average gross wage for US hired farm workers at $19.80 per hour as of January 2025, while farm managers averaged $30.70 per hour in 2024. Both figures come from the same USDA NASS Farm Labor report, which NASS reissues quarterly — in February, May, August, and November — so a reader checking wages for the current quarter should pull the latest release from that series rather than treat the figures here as fixed.

The wage gap between hired workers ($19.80/hour) and farm managers ($30.70/hour) — roughly $10.90/hour, or farm managers earning about 55% more per hour — reflects a structural divide in american agriculture system employment: a large hired-labor base doing field, harvest, and livestock work, and a smaller supervisory tier running the operation. Both wage figures pre-date any state or federal minimum-wage change since January 2025, so a reader budgeting current-year labor costs should check the newest quarterly release rather than these two numbers alone.

American Indian Agriculture: Tribal Land and Enterprise

American Indian agriculture operates through a distinct legal and land-tenure structure: farms and ranches on tribal trust land, individual allotments, and fee land within reservation boundaries, often leased to tribal-member or non-member operators under terms set by the Bureau of Indian Affairs alongside tribal governments themselves. USDA’s Census of Agriculture separately identifies American Indian/Alaska Native producers and reservation-adjacent farm operations in its detailed tables, but this research brief did not turn up a verified current count specific to that population — the right source is the Census of Agriculture’s producer demographics tables (most recently 2022, next full census due 2027), cross-checked against the USDA Office of Tribal Relations, rather than a number reconstructed from the general farm-count figures above.

Program-wise, USDA’s Farm Service Agency and the Intertribal Agriculture Council administer support specific to tribal producers — a different set of programs from the general farm-support schemes covered elsewhere in USDA data. Anyone researching this segment specifically should treat it as a distinct dataset, not a slice of the 1.88 million national farm count above.

Land Pressure: Mining, Water and Soil Near Farm Country

Farmland doesn’t sit in isolation from other land uses, and one recurring pressure on rural land in mineral-rich US regions is mining. Some of the country’s largest silver reserves — including holdings tied to Pan American Silver’s US mining operations — sit near ranchland, irrigated valleys, and forested watersheds that double as agricultural water sources. Where mining and farmland overlap, the practical questions are the same everywhere: who holds the water rights, how is runoff and sediment contained, and what does the reclamation plan actually specify for restoring topsoil once a site closes.

Responsible operators handle this with engineered containment (lined tailings ponds, silt fencing, buffer strips), continuous groundwater and sediment monitoring, and reclamation plans that detail topsoil reestablishment and native-species restoration once mining ends — the same land eventually returning to grazing, cropping, or forest cover. Screening a site before any ground is disturbed is the cheaper and lower-risk stage to catch a conflict with productive farmland: satellite-driven 3D mineral prospectivity mapping narrows the highest-potential target zones without a single test pit, which matters directly to a farm or ranch operation sitting on or near a claim.

Farmonaut’s satellite-based mineral detection approach applies this same logic: identify ore-bearing zones from orbit first, so ground disturbance — and the associated risk to adjacent cropland, irrigation, and soil structure — is confined to areas that actually warrant it. Landowners, investors, or agricultural operators who want to check how a specific parcel interacts with mineral claims or watershed boundaries can map a site directly.

Calculator: Corn vs. Soybean Revenue Per Acre

Using the national 2024 yield figures above as a starting point, enter your own acreage and expected price per bushel for corn and soybeans to compare estimated gross revenue per acre and total revenue.

Assumptions: uses USDA NASS final 2024 national average yields for corn, soybeans, and wheat as defaults (override with your own field-level yield); the default price is the University of Nebraska-Lincoln CropWatch 2025 Nebraska-average soybean forecast, not a national or current price — replace it with your own contract or cash price. This is gross revenue only: it excludes input costs, land rent, crop insurance, storage, and basis, so it is not a net-profit estimate.

How to Verify These Numbers Yourself

Every figure in this article expires on its own schedule, and each has a specific reissue point:

• Farm counts and acreage: USDA NASS’s Farms and Land in Farms report is released annually; the deeper Census of Agriculture runs every five years, with the next full census due in 2027. Check nass.usda.gov directly for the newest release.
• Crop production and yields: NASS publishes a final annual Crop Production report each January for the prior year’s harvest, with quarterly forecast updates during the growing season.
• Commodity prices: USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service posts daily and weekly grain market reports at ams.usda.gov/mnreports; USDA’s monthly WASDE report carries season-average price forecasts for corn, soybeans, and wheat.
• Farm employment and wages: USDA NASS’s Farm Labor report is reissued quarterly — February, May, August, and November — at esmis.nal.usda.gov.
• Canadian farm receipts and crop production: Statistics Canada updates farm cash receipts and field crop production on its own release calendar at statcan.gc.ca.
• Try it: Run your own numbers

This durable method — go to the primary statistical agency’s own release calendar rather than a secondary summary — holds regardless of which specific numbers change. For UK agricultural statistics not covered by the US/Canada sources above, the equivalent primary sources are DEFRA’s “Agriculture in the United Kingdom” annual report and the ONS agricultural census, both on gov.uk.

Some figures relevant to a fuller american agriculture system picture simply weren’t found in the research for this piece and shouldn’t be guessed at: UK-specific farm size and employment data, agricultural land values by US region, organic/sustainable certification adoption rates, crop insurance participation rates and premiums, and irrigation/water-use statistics tied to drought impact. Each of those has its own primary source (USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service and Economic Research Service cover most of the US gaps; DEFRA and ONS cover the UK gap) — worth pulling directly rather than estimating from the figures on this page.

For project-specific or land-parcel questions that these public datasets don’t answer directly, get a quote or contact us directly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: How many farms are there in the United States?

USDA NASS counted 1.88 million farms in 2024, covering 876.46 million acres, with an average farm size of 469 acres as of 2025. Source: USDA NASS’s Farms and Land in Farms 2024 Summary, reissued annually.

Q2: What are the main crops in American agriculture, and what do they yield?

Corn, soybeans, and wheat are the dominant row crops by acreage. In 2024, US corn yielded 183.1 bushels/acre (15.1 billion bushels total), soybeans yielded 50.7 bushels/acre (4.37 billion bushels total), and wheat yielded 52.2 bushels/acre (1.98 billion bushels total), per USDA NASS’s final Crop Production report.

Q3: How does the US agriculture system compare to Canada’s?

Statistics Canada reported $98.1 billion CAD in total farm cash receipts for 2024 ($52.2 billion CAD of that from crops), and 35 million tonnes of wheat production. These are Canadian national totals, tracked separately from the US figures above rather than combined into a single continental number.

Q4: How many people work in American agriculture, and what do they earn?

USDA’s Economic Research Service put total US farm employment at 1.18 million workers in 2024, with 637,000 hired farm workers counted in USDA NASS’s April 2025 reference week. Average hired-worker pay was $19.80/hour as of January 2025; farm managers averaged $30.70/hour in 2024. NASS reissues this data quarterly.

Q5: What is known about American Indian agriculture specifically?

Farms and ranches on tribal trust land, allotments, and reservation-adjacent fee land operate under a distinct tenure and program structure involving tribal governments, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and USDA’s Office of Tribal Relations. A verified current count specific to this population wasn’t available in the research for this article — the Census of Agriculture’s producer demographics tables (next full census 2027) are the right primary source.

Q6: How does mining near farmland affect agricultural productivity?

Overlap between mineral claims and farm or ranch land raises water-rights, runoff, and soil-disruption questions that responsible operators manage through engineered containment, monitoring, and reclamation planning. Satellite-based screening — see Farmonaut’s mineral detection tools — identifies target zones before ground disturbance, reducing risk to nearby cropland.

Every figure in this article is sourced to USDA NASS, USDA’s Economic Research Service, Statistics Canada, or the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s CropWatch service, each cited with its own reporting period above. Where a number wasn’t available — UK farm statistics, land values, organic adoption, crop insurance participation, irrigation data — that gap is stated plainly rather than filled with a guess.