Agriculture plays a key role in Illinois’ economy. New data from the USDA Census of Agriculture found that despite the number of farms in the state decreasing, the number of producers increased.
According to census data, the total number of producers in Illinois grew from over 116 thousand people in 2017 to over 121 thousand in 2022. Illinois ranks 6th in the country when looking at total number of producers.
While Illinois is in the top 10 for producers, the state still falls behind when looking at women in agriculture explains Mark Schleusener in a FarmDoc webinar.
“The main thing that stands out is there’s Illinois with 28% of all the producers in the state being female and it’s the smallest percentage in the entire country. The one thing I will say is, in all those Midwestern states, there’s 13 of them there and we included Kentucky, almost all of them are the lowest percentage across the entire country.”
Arizona and Alaska top the list with just over 47 percent of producers in the state being females.
