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Michigan loses more than 4,500 farms in latest census

The number of Michigan farms are declining but a regional director with USDA’s National Ag Statistics Service says they’re mostly very small farms.

“Over half of that decrease occurred in the sales group of $2,500 or less.”

Ty Kalaus with the Great Lakes Regional Field Office tells Brownfield results from the 2017 Census of Ag show all sized-farms did decline and were mostly in the grain and oilseed, horticultural, poultry, beef and dairy sectors.

“We did see an increase in the number of fruit farms, the number of vegetable farms and the number of hog farms.”       

There were fewer crop farms than during the 2012 Census while livestock farms are on the rise.  Lenawee and Sanilac Counties had the highest number of farms in the state.

Huron, Allegan, Ottawa, Ionia, and Sanilac made up the top five production counties, the same as in 2012.