The US Department of Agriculture tracks land use within the United States. As its name implies, the USDA’s primary responsibility covers agriculture such as crops, livestock, and timber. Their surveys include details within each of those categories. For example, what types of crops and the uses of them. What you may not know is that they also categorize and track all land use within the US. As such, the USDA data also includes information on urbanization, parks, military bases, airports, and numerous other land uses.
Buried with all of that land use data, there are quite a few interesting factoids.
Crop usage
When I think of agriculture the first image in my mind is a field of corn or wheat. According to the USDA 391.5 million acres (160M hectares) or 20% of the US is cropland. A little ovef half of that supports food we eat in the US. Specifically, ~20% for crops and a little over 30% for livestock feed. Another 24% supports food related exports. Roughly 10% supports the biofuels industry and slightly less than 5% is used for non-food crops like cotton, tobacco, and flowers. The remaining land, about one eighth of the total, is idle. One last interesting note, roughly one third of the US corn harvest is processed into ethanol.
Forest land
While crop usage is high, timber represents an even bigger user of land. Roughly 25% of all land in the US is forest. Even though this land is actively lumbered, because of replanting the forest land grows by roughly 1% per year. With more than 12 million acres, Weyerhauser is the largest private landowner in the US. Put in perspective, their holdings are slightly smaller than West Virginia.
Pasture & Range
A little more than a third of all land in the US is used to feed animals. Cows use the biggest share, but other animals including sheep, goats, and horses also contribute. Of the 654M acres used for animals, about 25% is managed by the government.
Other Uses
We’ve accounted for almost 80% of the land, what about the rest? Happily not all of our land is used for agriculture or business. National parks constitute just under 30M acres while state parks include more than 15M acres. Another 64M acres are designated wilderness areas. That’s almost as much land as our urban areas, which use 69M acres. Other interesting tidbits include an equal number of acres (3M) for golf courses and cemeteries.
Of course all of this wonderful data lends itself to a great map. Today’s map comes courtesy of Bloomberg.
As always thanks for reading.
Armen
Note to Pay the Bills: None of the books in the Misaligned Series is about agriculture, but they are set in the heart of New York’s wine, apple, and dairy country. How does that impact a story about Welsh mythology and theoretical physics? Learn more by reading a summary of the series here or find links to purchase books here.
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