Top 10 US States by Net Farm Income vs Federal Payments
Cross-cut of the PlainFarmData states table comparing federal payment totals against net farm income, a measure of how dependent each state's farm sector is on federal support versus market commodity sales. Draws current numbers directly from the states dataset.
Research period:
Research question
How does net farm income compare to federal payment receipt across the top farm states, and which regions show the highest dependency on federal support?
Methodology
This ranking is generated fresh from the current dataset from the U.S. Department of Agriculture every time the page loads, not a fixed figure typed in once and forgotten. When a new release is published, our next data refresh picks it up automatically.
States or counties with no data reported are left out rather than shown as a false zero, since the U.S. Department of Agriculture occasionally withholds a figure for data-quality reasons.
Every number on this page traces back to a specific record from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, so you can verify it yourself against the original source. See our methodology page for the full data pipeline and how often we refresh.
Editorial governance: PlainFarmData maintains an editorial standards document that codifies how rankings are constructed, how outliers are surfaced, how privacy-protected records are handled, and how corrections are processed when an entity disputes a value attributed to it. Subject-submitted corrections route through a defined intake process and are reconciled against the upstream record before publication; cosmetic corrections are recorded as overlay metadata while substantive corrections wait for the next official source release. A named editor reviews every ranking page before publication and signs off using the byline displayed at the top of this page. Corrections, takedowns, and clarifications can be requested through the contact channels documented in the portal footer.
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See the methodology page for the complete ETL pipeline, source vintage, and column lineage.
Top 10 US States by Net Farm Income vs Federal Payments
Live data, current as of the most recent source-data refresh
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects the current dataset from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and updates automatically the next time we refresh it.
| # | State | Region | Net farm income | Federal payments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | South | $15.4B | $1.2B |
| 2 | California | West | $12.1B | $665.5M |
| 3 | Iowa | Midwest | $9.5B | $724.6M |
| 4 | Nebraska | Midwest | $9.3B | $623.9M |
| 5 | Illinois | Midwest | $7.9B | $321.7M |
| 6 | South Dakota | Midwest | $6.4B | $590.4M |
| 7 | Kansas | Midwest | $6.0B | $727.0M |
| 8 | Indiana | Midwest | $5.4B | $140.0M |
| 9 | Minnesota | Midwest | $5.2B | $507.6M |
| 10 | Missouri | Midwest | $4.9B | $505.5M |
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA ERS Farm Income and Wealth Statistics. Values are current as of our most recent data refresh. U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA ERS Farm Income and Wealth Statistics. Values are current as of our most recent data refresh.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is Texas, with a value of $15.4B on the Net farm income column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record ($15.4B) and the 10th-ranked record ($4.9B) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Department of Agriculture, specifically the USDA ERS Farm Income and Wealth Statistics. PlainFarmData ingests each new release and republishes the figures here automatically, so this page always reflects the current dataset rather than a fixed snapshot. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the transformation steps applied during ETL.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
Net farm income includes all revenue sources for the farm sector, market commodity sales, government payments, and other farm-related income. Comparing federal payments to net farm income gives a rough dependency ratio but does not capture program-specific eligibility, cross-program substitution, or the role of crop insurance indemnities. Year-to-year variability in commodity prices and weather events can shift the dependency ratio substantially. The region assignment is the standard USDA-defined region and does not reflect intra-region heterogeneity. Insurance indemnities and conservation easement payments are not always captured in the same column as direct subsidies and may flow through separate USDA program lines.
Secondary cut from the same source
Federal payment totals aggregated by US region, Midwest, South, West, Northeast
Sources
- USDA Economic Research Service, Farm Income and Wealth Statistics - https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/farm-income-and-wealth-statistics
- USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service - https://www.nass.usda.gov/
Every figure on PlainFarmData is rendered directly from the USDA Census of Agriculture and farm-subsidy program data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on USDA Farm Service Agency source data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.