U.S. Farm Population Drops 11.5% in 1980s; Financial Stress Blamed
More than one rural resident in 10 left the land in the first half of the 1980s, as the nation’s farm population turned significantly smaller and older, the government said Thursday.
The nation’s farm population dropped 11.5% to 5,355,000 between 1980 and 1985, according to a new study by the Census Bureau and the Agriculture Department.
That means about one American in 45 lives on a farm, down from one in seven in 1950.
“It would be foolish not to think that the farm crisis is involved in this decline,” said Calvin Beale, an Agriculture Department population specialist .
“A consolidation of farms is going on as they lose out, or decide they are about to, and quit. So the farm population is still continuing to decline, and the end of the decline is certainly not visible yet,” Beale said.
The study said that “young family members may be more likely now than in the past to move off the farm . . . in the face of current economic uncertainties.”
That trend has helped lead to a median age of 36.5 years for farm residents, significantly higher than the median of 31.4 for the nation as a whole.
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