#7 - Agriculture is not growing.

Agriculture has a long and important history in the West. It’s still the most extensive land use in the region. However, its overall economic contribution has been flat in recent decades. As the rest of the economy grows, agriculture’s importance in terms of jobs and income has diminished, and in some cases the industry is having trouble competing for scare resources like water with other users.

For the West as a whole, agriculture, including ranching and agricultural services, made up 3.7 percent of total employment and 1.5 percent of total personal income in 2000.

Agricultural enterprises are producing a large volume and wide array of products, but few are getting wealthy doing so. Technological innovations have cut deeply into employment, and, as the graph below shows for the entire West, high production costs and thin margins for undifferentiated commodities have meant that only high volume or niche-market players can consistently turn a profit.

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, 2004. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Economic Information System (REIS CD-ROM). Washington, D.C.

As a result, agriculture is not as economically prevalent today. The map below shows counties in the West that have 20 percent or more of their personal income from farming and ranching. In some cases, agricultural dependence is associated with concentrated activities like a feedlot; in others, agriculture is so prominent because the rest of the economy has withered, leaving only agriculture.

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, 2004. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Economic Information System (REIS CD-ROM). Washington, D.C.

On its own, agriculture is not successfully supporting many communities in the West. Out-migration and poverty tend to characterize agriculturally dependent areas. In more rapidly growing settings, agriculture is struggling to compete with other land uses.