If one were to paint a portrait of optimism beyond all rational argument, it would be of the American farmer or rancher against a backdrop of everything the family owns tied up in land, family and faith.
Between sky-high materials costs, vagaries of weather and animal health, a shriveling labor force, and wide swings in commodities prices, there are few professions this side of working a bomb squad that are riskier than being a farmer. Farming is hard, physical work played out over long hours in all kinds of conditions and demands a dizzying range of skills, aptitude and plain old grit and gristle to see each year through.
It would stand to reason that a profession solely responsible for providing that which keeps the planet fed, clothed and enjoying many of the products of modern life would be protected at all costs, but such is not the case — and has never really been the case. For nearly 100 years, the number of farmers in the U.S. has been on the wane, and for roughly half of that time, the industry has been in real trouble. What the Great Depression did not kill off, the Great Farm Crisis of the 1980s nearly finished as millions of family farms cracked under debt and depressed market prices.
True to form, the farming community fought back time and again, holding operations together with baling wire and a spot weld even as children of the farm grew up and moved away to seek literal greener pastures, but staunching the bleeding goes only so far. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in March the number of U.S. farms slipped to 1.88 million in 2024, down from 2.04 million in 2017 and a 90-year march from the industry’s high point of 6.8 million farms in 1935.
The number of acres in production is also shrinking, down to 876 million total acres last year. The average farm size in the U.S. was 466 acres in 2024, slightly larger than the 440-acre average of the early 1970s, while the U.S. and world populations have increased 139 million and 4.5 billion, respectively, over that same span. That alone testifies to the miracles of innovation and efficiency that typify American agriculture, where far fewer producers feed far more people from working roughly the same sized patch of ground.
About 9.8 out of 10 farms today are of the family-owned variety, and when asked, 8 out of 10 current producers are clear about what they would like as a legacy for their operation — to pass it down to the next generation. Fewer and fewer are realizing that dream, so for the ones that do, it is a real accomplishment.
Arkansas Money & Politics, with the help of Arkansas Farm Bureau, tracked down some of the more fortunate ones in Arkansas, families that have worked the same ground, fed the same world and felt the same pride for generations. We salute them all for their work and sacrifice in service to the rest of America.
• Dennis Broadwater and Laura Keller, Independence County, 6 generations
• Mark and Randall Coleman, Clay County, 3 generations
• Joe, Will and Joseph Mencer, Chicot County, 4 generations
• Mark Morgan, Johnson County, 5 generations
• David Martin and Dana Stewart, White County, 6 generations
