About 22.8 Million People are Employed in Agriculture

Agriculture is an important and vast industry. There are millions of jobs that rely on the industry, not to mention our food, clothing and shelter. There are many industries within agriculture, including aquaculture, forestry, dairy, manufacturing, and much more. Check out these 15 facts about jobs in agriculture.

About 22.8 million people are employed in an agriculture-related field in the United States, such as farming, manufacturing, food science, agricultural engineering, and more. That’s about 1 in 12 jobs, or 15% of jobs, that are dependent on agriculture.
Farming jobs total over 2.5 million, or about 11% of all agricultural jobs.
In comparison, 200 years ago, 72% of workers were employed in “farming occupations.” By the late 1980s, that number dropped to 2%.
California has the most food and agriculture jobs with 2.8 million jobs, followed by Texas at 2 million jobs, and Florida with 1.4 million.
There are over 50,000 jobs available each year, and there aren’t enough qualified graduates to fill them.
The average age of today’s farmer is 55.9 years old.
Women make up 30% of today’s farmers.
20% of all farmers are beginning farmers.
There are over 250,000 millennial farmers.
Manufacturing jobs related to agriculture and food total 2.1 million jobs, or 9% of all ag jobs.
Worldwide, there are about 39 million workers in the aquaculture and fisheries industry. There are nearly 6,500 aquaculture farms in the United States.
There are about 900,000 jobs in forestry in the United States.
In 2014, the U.S dairy production and processing industry accounted for over 900,000 jobs in the country.
The newest industry in agriculture is the legal marijuana industry, which employs over 200,000 workers.
Ornamental horticulture employees about 530,000 workers.