A quarter of U.S. “farms” aren’t commercial, complicating pollution regulation

About one in four operations counted as "farms" in the United States produce little or no commercial output, a reality that stakeholders say is being used to argue against stricter pollution controls on agriculture.

The meat and dairy industries — together with the farms that grow corn and soy for animal feed — are among the largest sources of pollution linked to water quality, greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental harms. Yet those operations and many of the producers that support them are largely exempt from or insulated against a range of federal environmental regulations, a situation industry groups and allied politicians defend by pointing to the sheer number of farms in the country.

"There are more than 2 million farms and ranches in the U.S.," industry groups told the Supreme Court in a brief as the justices prepared to hear a high-stakes Clean Water Act case. The brief argued that tightening water-pollution rules would impose an unworkable burden on America’s so-called legion of farms.

In public remarks, then-Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack echoed that line of reasoning in 2022. When asked why farmers were not being required to reduce their pollution, Vilsack said farm pollution is not as straightforward to regulate as emissions from factories because the country has "millions of farms," and enforcing rules across that landscape would be difficult.

Experts and environmental advocates say citing raw counts of farms obscures an important distinction underpinning the debate: many operations included in federal tallies are small, part-time, or hobby farms that do not resemble large commercial enterprises that drive most pollution. The Census of Agriculture and other federal tallies use broad criteria that can classify small acreage or low-revenue operations as farms, inflating the number of discrete producers when those totals are offered as evidence that new rules would be widely burdensome.

That framing has found traction in legal and political fights over agricultural exemptions and regulatory reach. Agriculture industry groups have repeatedly argued in courts and rulemaking comments that expansive pollution controls would be administratively and economically infeasible because they would have to be enforced against millions of separate operators.

Environmental advocates counter that the lion’s share of agricultural pollution is concentrated in a comparatively small segment of large-scale operations — including confined animal feeding operations, industrial-scale dairies and the extensive supply chain that produces feed crops — which are not representative of the millions of small farms cited in industry filings. Those advocates say exemptions and narrow regulatory definitions leave major polluters beyond the reach of laws intended to protect waterways and public health.

The dispute has legal as well as policy consequences. The Clean Water Act case before the Supreme Court prompted extensive briefing from states, industry groups and environmental organizations. If the court narrows the statute’s scope, it could further limit federal authority over discharges from agricultural operations, tightening the legal space for regulators to require pollution controls.

Government officials who defend the current regulatory posture frequently stress practical enforcement challenges. Beyond the headline count of farms, enforcement requires inspection capacity, monitoring tools and clear statutory authority to treat agricultural discharges the same way regulators treat industrial sources. Those conditions are not uniformly present, and lawmakers and regulators have historically applied different standards to agriculture than to other sectors.

Still, researchers and advocates who study farming and pollution note that simple tallies can mislead public understanding. Visualizations and data analyses show that while the number of operations is large, median farm incomes and sales are low for many of those counted, indicating that a substantial share of "farms" are more accurately characterized as smallholdings rather than major industrial producers.

Lawmakers, regulators and courts are confronting how best to address agricultural pollution within that demographic and political reality. Some states have adopted targeted measures to limit runoff and nutrient pollution from large animal operations and fertilizer-intensive cropping systems; other proposals seek to extend permitting or monitoring requirements more broadly. The debate over whether federal rules should treat agriculture as a distinct regulatory category or bring major agricultural sources under the same standards that apply to industry remains unresolved.

As policymakers weigh reforms, the rhetoric about "millions of farms" continues to shape arguments about feasibility and fairness. Advocates for stronger environmental safeguards say a closer look at the structure of U.S. agriculture — including which producers are responsible for most emissions and discharges — is necessary to design enforceable, effective controls. Industry representatives and some officials maintain that the diversity and number of operations pose real implementation challenges that must be accounted for in any new regulation.

The Supreme Court’s handling of the Clean Water Act dispute and ongoing state-level actions will affect whether federal regulators can broaden enforcement and whether counts of farms will remain a central rhetorical shield against tighter pollution limits. In the meantime, the mismatch between how "farms" are counted and which operations produce the most pollution is likely to remain a central point of contention in environmental-policy debates.