Development continues to encroach on agricultural land around the United States. A new study shows exactly how much agricultural land has been developed.
"American Farmland Trust, which since 1980 has been attempting to save agricultural land in the U.S., has compiled a huge assessment of the movement of farmland between 1992 and 2012," according to an article by Dan Nosowitz.
The "Farms Under Threat" report finds multiple causes for the decline of agricultural land, including the relatively low earnings associated with the agricultural industry and the value of the land, "especially if that farmland is near a city or town." A lack of available land for farmers is also creating an obstacle for new farmers, according to the National Young Farmers Coalition.
The article includes a list of some of the "scary" findings of the report. The headline reads that the United States lost 31 million acres of farmland to development, in total, between 1992 and 2012, which comes out to175 acres per hour, or 3 acres per minute.
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