In 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture surveyed farms in every county across the nation. The survey was released to the public in 2024, and now the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah has used the data to compile a detailed report titled, "A Portrait of Agriculture in Utah."
The report reveals that most of Utah’s agricultural sales are concentrated in a small area.
“Seven counties account for 70% of total sales in 2022," said Eric Albers, a senior natural resources policy analyst at the institute. "That's Beaver, Millard, Utah, Iron, Sanpete, Box Elder, and Cache County.”
Even though the bulk of production is concentrated in a few highly productive counties, Albers said that many other smaller producers are distributed in rural areas across the state.
"There are a lot of very small farms in terms of total acreage," Albers said. "We have over 17,000 farmers, but a lot of them really don't see a lot of sales.”
Even though the state report finds that the typical farm is over 600 acres, the report shows how many Utah farmers are operating on extremely small pieces of land.
“One-third of our operations are operating on less than 10 acres," Albers said. "The census of ag, it picks up a lot of these small producers. They count farm operations as any operation that sells, or would have sold in a normal year, $1,000 worth of products or more.”
The report shows that about 70% of the 393 farms in Salt Lake County are smaller than 10 acres.
There is, however, considerable variation amongst Utah counties when it comes to farm size. In contrast to Salt Lake, more than 50% of farms in rural counties like Juab or Kane operate on more than 50 acres. In Rich County, almost 50% of farms have 500 acres or more of land.
The report shows that of Utah's 850,000 acres of harvested crops in 2022, 690,000 were hay or other animal feed crops. About 17,000 acres were used for vegetables and another 7,400 for fruit and nut trees.
While Utah crop production has a major footprint, dedicated pastureland covers about 10 times more area. More than 8 million acres of land in Utah are dedicated to grazing animals, about 15% of the state's total area.
However, according to this analysis, the state lost about 1.2 million acres of land between 2002 and 2022, split fairly evenly between cropland and pastureland. Considered along with the advanced age of many Utah farmers, this could be cause for concern about Utah's agricultural future.
"56.6 is our average age of producers in the state of Utah, and one-third of our producers are over 65," Albers said.
While many producers in rural counties are aging, Albers said, development threats to agricultural land in those counties are considerably lower. "A lot of our rural counties are essentially just flat in terms of of their projected population."
The report also raises the question of whether farmers can get by without supplemental income. The average net cash income for Utah farms is about $31,000. And for most farmers, that isn’t enough money to make ends meet.
“Farming isn't a primary job for a lot of these producers," Albers explained. "And again, part of that is just because we're capturing so many of these small farms. That was that was really eye-opening to me, that that so many of our producers, about 70% of them, have a different primary job other than farming.”
While the report is full of detailed information, Albers said that a few key developments since 2022 mean that some aspects of the report do not accurately reflect current agricultural conditions statewide.
One of the most significant changes was the closure of 26 Smithfield Foods operations in Utah since 2023. Smithfield was the largest pork producer in the state, and its closure almost certainly affected Millard and Beaver counties in ways that are not reflected in the current data set.
"Beaver and Millard are very high [for sales] in the 2022 Census of Agriculture," Albers explained. "And as we know in the report, a lot of this has to do with hog sales for those two counties. With the closure of Smithfield down in Beaver County, I'm sure this had a really, really negative impact for those counties."
The exact repercussions are still unknown, Albers said, but it's likely that the lives of people in those communities have been majorly disrupted.
"Our hog inventory has dropped from over 1 million hogs to less than 100,000 in 2025," Albers said. "A tenfold decrease is really, really jarring to communities that used to produce so many hogs."