A descriptive ranking of public USDA farm-payment dollars per acre of farmland — 2024 payments (EWG Farm Subsidy Database) over each county's farmland acres (2022 USDA Census of Agriculture).
This is a descriptive statistic built from public records: total USDA farm-program payments to a county in the 2024 payment window (EWG Farm Subsidy Database, all-program total), divided by that county's land in farms from the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture. It reflects county-wide totals — a few large operations, a single commodity, or a small farmland base can push a county high. It is not a prediction of what any individual farm received or will receive, and a high or low number does not mean a farm did anything right or wrong.
This ranking and FarmGrant's Underserved Score are two views of the same axis. The counties at the top of this list receive the most USDA dollars per acre — they are the better-supported counties (low Underserved Score). The counties at the bottom receive the least per acre — they score high on the Underserved Score. A low rank here corresponds to a high Underserved Score; the two never contradict. Lower USDA $/acre often reflects pasture, specialty, or non-commodity land use, not unclaimed funding.
Counties without reliable farmland-acre data are left out of the ranking. Sources: 6 public USDA/federal datasets including EWG/USDA subsidy records and the USDA NASS Census of Agriculture.