Page 18 - Farm and Food Policy Strategies for 2040 Series

Consider just a few key changes in U.S. cropping patterns over the last 100 years:

Oats: One of the first major U.S. crops, oats initially were grown primarily as feed for horses
and mules pulling farm equipment. Acreage peaked at 45.5 million and continued in the 35-40
million range until 1955, according to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. By 2018,
growers planted less than 3 million acres.

Soybeans: Soybeans were first planted in the U.S. in the early 1920s and reached 1 million acres
by 1930. But as interest grew in the plant’s ability to fix nitrogen in the soil and market demand
ramped up, growers again responded. Last year, farmers sowed over 89 million acres with the
oilseed. At the same time, new seed varieties have enabled production to move north. North
Dakota growers planted almost 7 million acres in 2018, compared to only 44,000 acres in 1950.

Grapes: Before Prohibition made alcohol illegal in 1920, Iowa was the nation’s sixth-largest
wine producer. A movement toward the production of more row crops, the development of new
herbicides in the mid-1900s, coupled with a severe blizzard in 1940, all knocked down the
amount of grapes grown in Iowa, according to the Iowa Wine Growers Association. Now the
industry is making a comeback, with about 100 commercial wineries across the state. Still, the
majority of U.S. grapes are grown in California, Oregon and Washington.

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