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The United States today has 2,176,000 farms, of which more than
88 percent are owned by the people who operate them. With their
effective use of machines, fertilizers and chemicals, American
farmers are virtually unrivaled in producing crops cheaply and in
quantity. Just 50 years ago a farmer fed 10 persons; today the average
farmer feeds 75. Yet the number of farmers decreases annually. There
were 15.7 million people living on farms in 1960; by 1980 that total
had decreased to 6.1 million. The U.S. farm population today is under
five million.
The number of farms has dropped over the years as well - from
some 3,963,000 in I960 to about 2,176,000 today. Total U.S. farmland
is also down, from 476 million hectares in 1960 to 406 million
hectares in 2000. At the same time, the average size of individual
farms has grown, from 120 hectares in 1960 to 187 hectares in 2000.
American farmers receive federal crop-price support and farm
credits, which have been developed to maintain a stable economic
environment. In addition, farmers benefit from federal programs
providing rural electrification, crop insurance and other services.
American farmers also rely on agricultural research and extension
institutions, such as the federal government's Agricultural Research
Service, which sponsors research into high-yielding, disease-resistant
crops and new strains of livestock and poultry. Of equal importance
to farmers is the nationwide Cooperative Extension System - a
network comprising the Department of Agriculture, land-grant
universities in the 50 states and more than 3,150 county offices. The
Extension System links research, science and technology with farmers
where they live and work.
The United States today produces as much as half the world's soy-
beans and corn for grain, and from 10 to 25 percent of its cotton,
wheat, tobacco and vegetable oils. Indeed, one-third of the farmland in
the United States produces crops for export to Europe, Asia, Africa
and Latin America. U.S. farm exports reached a high of $43.3
thousand million in 1999. Agricultural imports lag far behind, leaving
a surplus in the agricultural balance of trade.
In the early 1980s, American farmers entered a period of
economic difficulty. Agricultural exports declined, partly due to the
high value of the U.S. dollar (which raised the cost of U.S. products to
foreign buyers). Crop prices fell, interest rates rose, and farmers found
themselves hard-pressed to keep up payments on loans taken on when
incomes were higher. Several governmental and private programs