Across the country, skyrocketing prices, wages and operating costs have shuttered hundreds of thousands of American farms. MSN reports in the past five years alone, over 140,000 American farms have tilled for the last time. Going back to 1950, 66% of all U.S. farms — 3.75 million farms in total — have stopped producing. The number of acres farmed has dropped by 323 million, which is roughly twice the size of the three Northwest states combined.
Agriculture experts worry as family farms across America gasp to stay afloat and go broke.
“We have been losing family farmers at an alarming rate for 50 years now, and every time we go through these cycles like we are currently in, we lose more,” according to Scott Blubaugh, the president of American Farmers & Ranchers/Oklahoma Farmers Union.
Agricultural economist Cesar Escalante said it’s the smaller farms that suffer because their backs are against the wall.
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