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Over the next 15 years, American agriculture will remain a productive and profitable venture, but the industry will look considerably different than it does today. According to a two-year Farm Bureau study, U.S. agriculture’s future will include a drastically changed government farm program, continued consolidation of production and the adoption of additional environmental practices dictated by the marketplace.

The study was conducted by AFBF's "Making American Agriculture Productive and Profitable Committee." The MAAPP committee consisted of 23 Farm Bureau farmers and ranchers from across the nation who spent two years studying the possible structure of U.S. agriculture in the year 2019, the 100th anniversary of AFBF. Former OFBF President Irv Bell of Muskingum County was a member of the committee. The report was publicly unveiled this month during AFBF's 87th annual meeting in Nashville.

"It is obvious from the report that America’s farm and ranch families are facing big challenges but also big opportunities," said AFBF President Bob Stallman during a meeting of the AFBF board of directors. "This report signals that we must continue to pursue sound public policies that help preserve the family-oriented structure of American agriculture and encourage the economic health of our rural communities."

The MAAPP committee, chaired by Kentucky farmer Bill Sprague, was asked "to develop a vision of where American agriculture should be in 2019 and then develop policy recommendations to help farmers make the transition from the current situation to that of the future."

The committee identified various trends and circumstances affecting the future of farmers and ranchers. Those trends include:

• Government support for agriculture will look very different in 2019; the farm bills of recent years will be nothing like the farm bills of the future.

• America will have fewer farms producing a larger percentage of total U.S. food and fiber, but there also will be more smaller farms.

• Farmers will be more dependent on rural communities than rural communities will be dependent on agriculture.

• Global trade will be driving agricultural profitability because more than 96 percent of the world’s population will be living outside the United States.

• More farmers and ranchers will have learned to produce what they can sell and not simply sell what they produce.

• Market forces will be driving the implementation of more environmental practices.

• Agricultural research and technology will be global in scope rather than focused nationally.

Perhaps one of the most glaring areas in the report deals with the future structure of U.S. agriculture. In 2002, 143,000 farming operations produced 75 percent of the value of all agricultural output. It took 1.9 million operations to produce the remaining 25 percent. According to the report, however, by 2019, there will be more large farms and more small farms, but the number of mid-sized farms will have decreased drastically.

OFBF’s Bell, a grain and hog farmer, said this shift away from mid-size farms was a standout point of the report. He said it will be important for Farm Bureau to consider how it can stay "vital and viable" among these shifts in farm size.

He said the MAAPP committee made a "huge investment in people and time" to create the report and said it should be used as background as Farm Bureau’s policy process evolves so members can get a grasp of what the trends are in agriculture.