Farms.com Home   News

Major Land Uses

By Ray Massey

Missouri has 44 million acres of land, 64 percent of which is listed as agricultural land. Taking the long view of land use clarifies the impact of agriculture on the environment. The USDA Census of Agriculture has published the number of acres in major land use categories since 1945. Exhibit 2.1 shows that the number of acres in cropland reached a maximum of 21.5 million acres in 1969. Since then, land dedicated to crop production decreased to 15.6 million acres in 2012. The black line in Exhibit 2.1 shows that the amount of land used for crop and livestock production decreased from 36.2 million acres in 1945 to 28.8 million acres in 2012.

Using less land for crop and livestock production has resulted in an additional 6.2 million acres of forestland not grazed and an additional 700,000 acres of parks and wildlife areas.


Exhibit 2.1 — Missouri land uses, 1945–2012

Source: missouri.edu


Trending Video

Market to Market

Video: Market to Market

The U.S. looks for trade options in a global landscape. The devaluation of the peso’s impact on American producers. A look at USDA's effort to increase the practice of double cropping. And commodity market analysis with Dan Hueber.