---
title: American Farms Aren't Killing American Forests
description: life cycle assessments sustainability c02 carbon
image: https://usleather.org/hubfs/GettyImages-513053667-5b6a0d7846e0fb002cffab15.jpg
---

![](https://usleather.org/hs-fs/hubfs/GettyImages-513053667-5b6a0d7846e0fb002cffab15.jpg?width=1240&height=606&name=GettyImages-513053667-5b6a0d7846e0fb002cffab15.jpg)

# American Farms Aren't Killing American Forests

##### March 11, 2026

**The big picture**: A new USDA assessment confirms U.S. agriculture and timber aren't driving deforestation. And the data tells a surprisingly optimistic story.

**What's actually happening: **Forest cover is near a century-long high. Former farmland is *reverting* to forest, thanks to economic shifts and programs like the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays landowners to retire marginal cropland.

**The real culprit: **Urban sprawl. Housing developments, roads, and commercial lots, not farms, are the primary driver of land-use change in America.

**The actual forest threats are ecological:**

- Insects and disease
- Catastrophic wildfire
- Drought and hurricanes
- Invasive species

**Why it matters: **Global deforestation is a genuine crisis, but it's concentrated in tropical regions, from entirely different causes. Mistakenly blaming American farmers misdirects regulation and fractures the coalitions actually needed to fight real forest loss.

**The bottom line**: U.S. trees are doing better than the headlines suggest. Getting the diagnosis right is the only way to write the right prescription.

Read more [here](https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/USDA-Assessment-of-Ag-driven-Deforestation.pdf).

 

 

 

 

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