West Virginia

In the rolling hills of West Virginia lie 22,300 active farms and 3.5 million farming acres, with over 1 million acres allocated for pasture and 947,710 for cropland. West Virginia produced 370,000 cattle in 2021 and also raises chickens, turkeys, goats, sheep, and hogs.

The state's primary crop production comes in the form of hay, alfalfa, and haylage, with farms harvesting over 1 million acres annually. Beyond that, West Virginia also harvests around 51,000 acres of corn per year.

The market value of agricultural products sold in West Virginia in 2017 was $754,279,000. This is a significant source of revenue for the state, however, digging deeper reveals that the average market value of agricultural products sold per operation was around $31,931, the market value of agricultural products sold directly to consumers was $11,199,000, and the market value of agricultural products sold directly to retail markets, institutions, and food hubs for local or regionally branded products totaled $2,609,000.

Numbers tell an interesting story. What these numbers tell us is that over $740.47 million dollars of agricultural revenue is likely going to large corporate industries, and with this, the agricultural products as well. This business model shuttles money away from the local community, creates thin margins for farmers, and sine many of the industrial and corporate food industries export a large percentage of the country's produce, it shuttles food and high quality, nutrient dense foods out of the hands of Americans.

Adopting a farm to table approach to food and nutritional sourcing has the ability to reverse this. Sourcing directly from local, family owned responsible and sustainable farms is how we regain our power, restore our local economies, and become less reliant on big industries and inflated markets.