New data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture paints a bleak picture of the future of small family farms. Virginia lost 4,320 farms — about 10% of the total number of farms in the commonwealth — between 2017 and 2022. More than 1,800 of those farms were under 10 acres.
As those thousands of farms ceased operations, the number of corporate farms increased. Thousands of acres of farmland is being absorbed by larger farm operations or snapped up by developers to build housing.
The shift is visible in Hampton Roads. Chesapeake went from having 248 farms in 2017 to 180 in 2022, according to the farm census. Meanwhile, the average size of the farms that remained in the city increased by more than 40%.
The pattern is the same in other areas: Farming communities are being pressured by increasing suburbanization in Virginia Beach and Isle of Wight County. Chesapeake farmer Christina Teeuwen worries about the future of farming in the city.
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