News
Recent study shows that 1.6 million hectares have been lost to development since 2001
A recent report from the University of Illinois shows that the Midwest has lost 1.6 million acres of productive farmland since 2001.
Carl Zulauf, professor emeritus at Ohio State University, says the loss represents 1 percent of total farmland in eight states.
“The loss of agricultural land reduces the country’s production capacity or even has a greater impact on yield growth,” he says.
Don Lamb, director of the Indiana Department of Agriculture, said his state has released a similar study.
“Both studies show that people are interested,” he says. “For me, that’s the most important thing: We’re starting to pay attention. We’ve been paying attention for some time. And if you want to do something about it, the first step is knowing the information.”
Since 2010, Indiana has lost 2% of its farmland.
Both studies attribute the loss to a revival of development.
“You can look at these two studies and try to analyze how accurate and how perfect everything is,” he says. “And it’s not perfect. I mean, it’s not perfect information. So now we have a baseline and from now on, the more often we do this, the more often we do these surveys and the more often we collect the information, the more accurate it will be.”
Click here to view the University of Illinois study.
