Agriculture

Within New England, the northern states have most of the farmland, while the southern states have most of the consumers. Maine and Vermont hold about 66% of land in agriculture in New England (note that nearly half of land in agriculture in New England is woodland). In fact, the county with the most acreage of farmland in New England—Aroostook County, Maine—is the farthest away from the population centers of the region. Farmland substantially decreased over the past 80 years, but acreage has been relatively steady over the past 20 years. Our estimate of the amount of additional farmland necessary to reach 30% consumption of regional production by 2030, 588,430 acres, is a small percentage of the amount of farmland that has been lost since 1945, 10,176,535 acres. A few major product categories–dairy products in Vermont, nursery/greenhouse products in Connecticut, and vegetables in Maine–account for the majority of regional agricultural sales.

Farmland by County, 1945-2022
Farmland by State, 1945-2022
Farmland by Category, 2022
Farmland Decrease from 1945 to 2022
Farmland as Percent of Total Land Area
New England Farms and Agricultural Sales, 2022
New England Farms and Agricultural Sales, 2022
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Note About Connecticut Maps: Although Connecticut has not had county governments since 1960, county boundaries have historically been used to depict data. For example, all USDA Census of Agriculture data for Connecticut is collected at a county-level. In 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau shifted to using Connecticut's nine planning regions as county equivalent geographic units for data collection. This has presented a challenge for depicting data for Connecticut's planning regions in Tableau. This mapping challenge has not been resolved yet, but when a solution is available, we will update Connecticut maps.