logo

Do white farmers significantly outnumber minority farmers?

Wednesday, March 17, 2021
By Lauralei Singsank
YES

According to the Agriculture Department’s 2017 Census of Agriculture, 95.4% of all farm producers are white. The department defines producers as “someone involved in making decisions for the farm,” thus leading more people to identify as such than in the previous census. Hispanic producers constitute 3% of all farmers, while 1.7% are American Indian or Alaska Native and 1.3% are Black. Asians are 0.6% of farmers; 0.1% are Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders.

Farm ownership also shows a similar preponderance of white farmers. White people own 98% of all private agricultural land, according to 2002 data from the department.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
FACT BRIEF BY
facebook
twitter
email
email