Top Crops in Tennessee: What USDA Data Shows

Field crops account for 1.8M acres in Tennessee — a moderate footprint that coexists with livestock, specialty crops, forestry, or non-agricultural land uses.

Soybeans alone accounts for roughly 81% of the state's tracked field-crop production by volume — a single-crop economy by USDA's measurement, with downstream livestock, processing, and ag-services activity disproportionately exposed to soybeans prices.

Soybeans are the second pillar of U.S. row-crop agriculture, primarily crushed for soybean meal (livestock feed) and soybean oil (cooking, biodiesel). Roughly half of U.S. soybean output is exported, with China historically the largest single buyer.

Tennessee ranks #22 of 35 tracked states for total field-crop production, contributing about 0.9% of combined output. Production is real but smaller in scale than the Corn Belt and Great Plains anchors of U.S. agriculture.

Tennessee shares its lead crop (Soybeans) with 3 other tracked states: North Dakota, Missouri, Ohio. Together these states form the core of U.S. soybeans production and tend to move in concert with weather, planting decisions, and price cycles.

National-level rankings, harvested acres, and yield-per-acre data for every U.S. crop are published by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Export demand for the same crops — a major driver of farmgate prices in Tennessee — is tracked by the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service.

U.S. row-crop acreage shifts every spring with relative crop prices, input costs (fertilizer, diesel, seed), and the previous year's weather. Soybeans acreage in Tennessee responds to the corn-soybean-wheat price ratio published each winter; a higher soybeans price relative to alternatives pulls more acres into soybeans the following season. Yields, in turn, are dominated by growing-season weather — June rainfall, July temperatures, and timely first-frost dates set the gap between a record harvest and a USDA disaster declaration.

Over the last decade, U.S. crop production has trended upward on yield improvements (genetics, precision agriculture, better nitrogen management) even as harvested acres have stayed roughly flat. Tennessee's long-run trajectory follows that same arc: production records are typically set in years that combine modern hybrids with favorable weather, while disappointing years usually trace back to drought, late planting, or early frost rather than reduced acreage.

For Tennessee farmers, this mix means revenue is concentrated — a bad soybeans year hits hardest because alternative crops are limited. For grain buyers, processors, and shippers, Tennessee's output is a first-call sourcing region for soybeans and cotton. For policymakers, federal support programs (Title I commodity payments, crop insurance, ARC/PLC) flow disproportionately into states with 2-crop profiles like this one.

Crop insurance premium subsidies, marketing-loan rates, and ARC/PLC payment triggers are all calibrated against USDA NASS production data — the same dataset behind this page. That makes the official numbers more than a statistical curiosity: they directly determine federal farm-program payouts to Tennessee producers in years when prices or yields fall below benchmarks.