It’s no surprise to the agricultural community, but the 2017 Census of Agriculture confirmed it Thursday — Texas farmers and ranchers are doing more with less and taking fewer days off to get it done. In 2017, there were 248,416 farms in Texas. That’s 390 fewer than in 2012, but 20,243 more than logged in the 1997 census. Farms are slowly getting smaller over time. In 1997, the average farm in Texas sat on 587 acres. The average size, according to the 2017 census, is 511 acres. There are now a little over 127 million acres actively used in farming—6.9 million acres fewer than ...