Trends in farming near cities

Farming trends in U.S. metropolitan areas over the past four decades were analyzed using county-level census data. The results do not support the prevalent belief that, because of anticipated suburban development, farmers in metropolitan areas idle land prematurely and fail to maintain and improve their farms9 productivity. Number of farms, land in farms, and harvested cropland declined only slightly faster and sales of farm products rose only slightly slower than in adjacent nonmetropolitan areas. More recently, the relative decline in metro areas has stopped. Analysis of relative rates of change beteen 1969 and 1982 suggests that metro-nonmetro differences in the characteristics of farms and their operators may be more important than differences related to population and development pressures on the land.