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The area farmed in the US has declined slowly since the 1950s, maybe down 20%? Am eyeballing graphs as google is failing me: https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/c
by iguy 6y ago
The area farmed in the US has declined slowly since the 1950s, maybe down 20%? Am eyeballing graphs as google is failing me:
https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/charts/58267/farms_fig01_450px.png?v=7683.2 https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/charts/58267/farms_fig01_45...
It would decline faster if we didn't subsidize stupid stuff like corn ethanol, for sure.
Edit, a maybe a better graph:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-agriculture?tab=chart&country=CAN~FRA~DEU~POL~GBR~USA~JPN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-f...
- ip26 6y agoI don't know about France, but I understand in the US that decline has mostly been the result of residential development buying out farmland. For just one small but hot-button current example, see Napa. For a historical example, see Silicon Valley, which was once orchards.
- iguy 6y agoUrban land is 69 M acres, cropland 391 (according to some quick googling) and pasture 654. So urban is 17% of cropland, or 7% of all farmland. I'm surprised it's that high to be honest, compared to plane-window impressions. Surely a majority of urban area is post-1950, how much is former crop/ranch/forest I'd struggle to guess. Would be interesting to have better numbers, and over time.