2024 Plowprint Report

In 2022—the year this report examines—approximately 1.9 million acres of grasslands were converted to croplands across the US and Canadian portions of the Great Plains region. This figure, while significant, represents a slight improvement from the previous 10-year average of 2.6 million acres per year. In the Northern Great Plains region, which represents one of the world’s four largest intact temperate grasslands, 480,000 acres—an area 2x the size of New York City—were converted in 2022. This is lower than the 10-year average of about 630,000 acres per year, but, as with conversion across the Great Plains, this is not an acceptable level of loss.