The number of farms using intensive tillage practices in the US declined by 25 million acres from 2012 to 2017, according to the US Census of Agriculture.

US farmers are moving from intensive to reduced tillage and indeed from reduced tillage to no-tillage.

A total of 405,692 farms were using the plough in 2012. This reduced dramatically in five years – by 140,799ac to 264,893ac.

217,069 farms used reduced tillage practices in 2017. This converted to a total of 97.7 million acres. In 2012 this figure was significantly lower at 195,738 farms and 76.6 million acres.

A total of 279,370 farms implemented no-tillage practices in 2017. These farms accounted for 104.5 million acres.

The number of farms implementing no-tillage practices only increased by a small margin from 2012, when it stood at 278,290 farms. However, the number of acres increased by eight million acres. In 2012, 96.5 million acres were under no-till in the US.