50 percent of the farms in the U.S. are in that category. The land in Appalachia is less suitable for
intensive crop production than in most other regions because of the rough terrain that characterizes
terrain; about half of the cropland was used to produce hay and much of the land in farms is only
used for pasture. In 1997, nearly 30 percent of the land in farms was woodland while some 38
percent was used for pasture, including woodland pastured.
About three fourths of Appalachian cash receipts are obtained from livestock sales compared
with only half for all U.S. farms (Figure 3). Historically, beef and dairy production were the more
important sources, but poultry production has accounted for an increasing proportion of the value
of farm production in Appalachia, especially in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee,
Virginia and West Virginia; the number broilers sold increased from 578 million 1964 to over 1.7
billion in 1.7 (1.3 billion in Alabama and Georgia); the region accounted for one fourth of the
broi8lers produced in the nation. However, most small farms receive more income from off-farm
than from farm sources; in 1997 over 135,000, 58.9 percent, of the farm operators in Appalachia
reported that their primary occupations were ‘other’, i.e., not farming (49.7 percent of farm operators
in the U.S. reported ‘other’ as their primary occupation).
Although average farm size is relatively small in Appalachia, substantial numbers of larger
farms are found in the region (Table 2). Some 8.3 percent of farms in Appalachia reported the value
of 1997 farm sales of over $100,000. For the U.S., this percentage was 12.7, which is consistent
with the generally larger sizes fo the nation. While the patterns of the distributions of sizes based
on sales are similar for Appalachia and the U.S., the region has more farms in the three categories
for farms with sales under $10,000 per year while the U.S. has higher proportions of its farms in the
three categories with sales of over $25,000. Within the Appalachian region, operations with larger
sales values exist for farms with beef, dairy, pork, poultry, orchards, and tobacco as the primary
commodities produced and sold.
Productivity and Specialization
Average crop yields in the Appalachian Region tend to be lower than for the U.S. (Table 3).
A comparison for selected crops of U.S. yields with those for the Appalachian region indicates that
for the U.S. average corn yield was 122 bushels per acre compared with 87 for the Appalachian
region; wheat was 37.5 bushels versus 35, tobacco averaged 2,085 pounds per acre and 1,817, while
hay yields averaged 2.3 tons per acre compared with 1.9. Appalachia’s yields were also less in 1964,
except for wheat and tobacco, and in 1997 for all four crops analyzed; yields generally increased in
both the U.S. and the region.
Farm production has become more specialized in both the U.S. and Appalachia. This is a
trend that became notable in the post World War II period as farmers turned increasingly toward
commercial operations producing for the market. While the census does not report information on
specialization, an examination of the percentages of total farms producing a wide range of products
indicates that substantially smaller percentages produce most the crops and livestock enterprises
(Table 5). Except for cattle and calves in Appalachia, a much smaller percentage of farms produce
each of the major products than in the past. In addition, fewer farms seem to be producing products
exclusively for home consumption. Production per unit for farms producing a particular product also
has increased in both the U.S. and Appalachia, but output per farm in Appalachia still lags
considerably behind those of the U.S. This, of course, is consistent with the continued existence of