The 2022 Census of Agriculture puts the average US farm at 463 acres, but half of all farms operate 72 acres or less. Both numbers are correct. The average is pulled up by a relatively small number of very large ranches and grain operations, while the median, the farm in the middle of the line, reflects the much larger number of small places. Anyone comparing counties should look at both, and this note shows how far apart they can be.
Two numbers, two different farms
Land is spread very unevenly across farms. Farms under 50 acres make up 42.2% of all US farms, while farms of 1,000 acres or more make up 8.4%. A comparatively small number of very large farms is enough to lift the mean far above the median. The same pattern holds county by county: in 2,599 of the 2,894 counties with at least 100 farms, the average farm is more than twice the size of the median farm. Across those counties the middle value of the county averages is 282 acres, and the middle value of the county medians is 82 acres.
For a quick reading of any county page on this site, the average answers "how much land is farmed per operation", and the median answers "how big is a typical operation". In ranching country the two can differ by thousands of acres.
How the size classes changed since 2017
The census sorts every farm into a size class by the acres it operates. Between 2017 and 2022 the number of farms fell in every class, from the smallest hobby places to operations of 2,000 acres or more, while the national average size rose from 441 to 463 acres and the median slipped from 75 to 72.
| Acres operated | Farms, 2017 | Farms, 2022 | Share, 2022 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 9 acres | 273,325 | 234,592 | 12.3% | −14.2% |
| 10 to 49 | 583,001 | 566,912 | 29.8% | −2.8% |
| 50 to 179 | 564,763 | 530,529 | 27.9% | −6.1% |
| 180 to 499 | 315,017 | 288,379 | 15.2% | −8.5% |
| 500 to 999 | 133,321 | 120,456 | 6.3% | −9.6% |
| 1,000 to 1,999 | 87,666 | 76,311 | 4.0% | −13.0% |
| 2,000 or more | 85,127 | 83,308 | 4.4% | −2.1% |
The steepest proportional drop came in the smallest class, farms of 1 to 9 acres, which lost 14.2% of their number. The class of 2,000 acres or more fell least, by 2.1%. Fewer small farms and a steadier count of very large ones is exactly the combination that pushes the average up.
Where farms are largest
The biggest average farms are in counties where pastureland makes up almost all of the land in farms: at least 83% in each of the ten counties below. Among the 2,894 counties with at least 100 farms, the largest averages are in West Texas: Hudspeth County, TX leads at 16,309 acres per farm, and 5 of the top ten are Texas counties; the rest are in Montana and Wyoming.
| County | Average farm, acres | Median farm, acres | Farms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hudspeth County, TX | 16,309 | 1,100 | 162 |
| Presidio County, TX | 16,076 | 8,710 | 147 |
| Jeff Davis County, TX | 13,279 | 220 | 107 |
| Pecos County, TX | 12,104 | 2,950 | 249 |
| Brewster County, TX | 11,021 | 3,369 | 205 |
| Garfield County, MT | 9,770 | 5,100 | 238 |
| Carbon County, WY | 9,217 | 800 | 311 |
| Big Horn County, MT | 8,767 | 909 | 364 |
| Rosebud County, MT | 7,982 | 1,200 | 360 |
| Converse County, WY | 7,627 | 710 | 314 |
Even here the median tells a different story. A county's median can sit far below its average when a handful of very large ranches share the county with many small holdings. At the state level, Wyoming, Montana and Nevada have the largest average farms; Wyoming reaches 2,729 acres.
Where farms are smallest
The smallest averages belong to counties that contain large cities, such as Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), King County (Seattle) and Miami-Dade County. Barnstable County, MA has the smallest average of any county with at least 100 farms, 11 acres.
| County | Average farm, acres | Median farm, acres | Farms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barnstable County, MA | 11 | 5 | 349 |
| Cuyahoga County, OH | 15 | 11 | 104 |
| Kitsap County, WA | 17 | 7 | 570 |
| Broward County, FL | 20 | 2 | 658 |
| Miami-Dade County, FL | 26 | 5 | 2,664 |
| Clark County, WA | 29 | 10 | 1,927 |
| King County, WA | 29 | 10 | 1,604 |
| Morris County, NJ | 31 | 12 | 471 |
| Ocean County, NJ | 31 | 10 | 224 |
| Clallam County, WA | 31 | 10 | 514 |
Among the states, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Jersey have the smallest average farms.
Six states with the most farmland
The gap between average and median is not just a ranching story. In the six states with the most land in farms, the average farm is several times the median one, and the ratio differs more than the averages alone suggest.
| State | Land in farms, acres | Average farm | Median farm | Average ÷ median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 125,471,325 | 544 | 59 | 9.2× |
| Montana | 57,601,320 | 2,374 | 250 | 9.5× |
| Kansas | 44,794,702 | 804 | 164 | 4.9× |
| Nebraska | 43,975,693 | 989 | 233 | 4.2× |
| South Dakota | 42,304,601 | 1,495 | 319 | 4.7× |
| New Mexico | 39,128,563 | 1,865 | 38 | 49.1× |
A high ratio means that a minority of large operations holds much of the land while most farms are small; a ratio closer to one means farms in the state are more alike in size.
Two counties side by side
Presidio County, TX has one of the largest median farms in the country, 8,710 acres, and an average of 16,076: most of its 147 farms are big. Kossuth County, IA, which harvests more corn than any other county with a published figure, looks modest by comparison: an average of 436 acres and a median of 228. Acres alone say little about how much a county produces, which is why the county pages put farm size next to crops, animals and sales rather than ranking places by size alone.
Reading size on a county page
Every county profile on Farm Census shows the average and the median together, plus a chart of the share of farms in each size class next to the national shares. If the county's columns sit to the left of the US columns, its farms are smaller than the national pattern; if they sit to the right, larger. To find the counties with the most land in a particular crop instead, use the top-counties explorer, and see how to read the data for the exact definitions of land in farms and the size classes.
Sources
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2022 Census of Agriculture and 2017 Census of Agriculture, county, state and national data (bulk files at www.nass.usda.gov/datasets/). Tables and charts computed by Farm Census.