2022 Census of Agriculture: Majority of farms with beef cows have fewer than 50 cows

Beef cow-calf farms—operations that raise beef calves at least through weaning—are numerous in the United States, and most are relatively small. Data from USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2022 Census of Agriculture indicated that 55 percent of U.S. farms with beef cows had fewer than 20 beef cows on December 31, 2022, while less than 1 percent had 1,000 or more beef cows. Farms with fewer than 20 beef cows held 9 percent of the national inventory of cows, and those with 1,000 cows or more held 10 percent of the inventory. Farms with 200 to 999 beef cows held 35 percent of the inventory. With a total of 29.2 million beef cows on 622,000 farms on December 31, 2022, the average beef farm had 47 cows. For more information, see the USDA, Economic Research Service report, Structure, Management Practices, and Production Costs of U.S. Beef Cow-Calf Farms, published in July 2023.

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