By Scott Irwin
University of Illinois Ag Economist
A recent farmdoc daily article reported estimates of the total acreage base, or size of the “acreage pie,” for the U.S. over 1998-2020. The total was relatively stable from 1998 through 2014, near the average of 359.4 million acres. However, there was a puzzling 14.4 million acre drop in total crop acreage after 2014.
This trend was first noted in earlier farmdoc daily articles (April 2, 2015; January 21, 2016). The purpose of this article is to investigate what happened to the missing U.S. crop acres.