Cost of Doing Business: Which farmers are taking the hardest hit in farm expenses?

Farming is a time consuming and costly process, especially with inputs reaching new highs over the last couple of years. New data from USDA shows U.S. producers spent a staggering amount of money last year just to keep their operations running.

Across the United States, farm expenditures came out to $481 billion, which is a 6 percent hike from 2022. The head of the National Ag Statistics Service says crop farmers are paying the most.

“Average per farm expenditures in 2023 was $255,000 and that is up from 2022. Expenditures are higher for crop farms at nearly $300,000, $298,000 to be specific, then for livestock farms, which is $220,000. Livestock farms tend to include more, smaller operations. It should be said that we also produce these data by size, class and so the very largest farms or larger farms that bode between a million and $5,000,000 in farm value sales have the largest category of farm production expenditures,” said Joseph Parsons.

Producers in California paid the most last year, with expenditures landing around $53 billion, which is up 15 percent from 2022.