Is migrant wealth replacing local work in the countryside?

Most of America’s land today is still rural. And 200 years ago, most Americans were family farmers on family farmland—but no more.

The number of farms — generously defined as any outfit from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were sold or would normally be sold — is down to fewer than 2.1 million, from about 6.8 million in 1935.  The number of farm acres is declining as well, down to about 933 million acres in 2005 from 987 million in 1990.

The majority of the farms America has now are small; they might be called, “sort of funny farms.” About 40 percent (834,000) are classified as residential/lifestyle farms, and 14 percent (291,000) are retirement places.  Another 20 percent are “limited-resource” operations with less than $100,000 in annual gross sales and total household income of less than $20,000. Read more