Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat

The 2007 Census of Ag Is In the Mail

By Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel, 1-01-08

	Farm Population has dwindled

The USDA has mailed out the most recent Census of Agriculture, held every five years to count the number of farmers and ranchers working in the United States. Among other things, the census gathers information about land use and ownership, the age of farmers, their production practices and income. Policy makers then use census data to make decisions affecting agricultural programs and community planners use the information to identify needs and services.

In the West, the USDA will use the 2007 Census to gather more information about Native American farmers, organic farmers and those involved in growing crops used to make bio-based fuels.

While information from the Census of Agriculture provides vital information about farms and ranches in our country and how they have declined over the last century, it also uses a broad definition of a farm to do so.

For Census purposes, the USDA defines a farm as, “any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the Census year.” Basically, this means that if you could sell a few animals for $1,000 during 2007, then you are a farmer.

The USDA uses this definition in an attempt to count all farms of all kinds, but the definition means that people owning a few animals worth $1,000 can be considered farmers. This can misrepresent the number of active farmers, especially in the West where ranchettes dot the landscape, and might skew the statistics, making it seem like there are more small farms than there really are.

In turn, a Community Food Assessment from the University of Montana indicated that the Census was not inclusive of all farmers in Missoula County because some farmers did not receive the Census (opens pdf) and were not counted. This is likely true at the national level as well.

But in an Internet age, farmers and ranchers who don’t receive the census can now fill it out online and be counted. With any luck, this will make the census available to more working farmers and ranchers, improve the report’s accuracy and provide a more complete picture of farming and ranching in this country.

Responses are due by February 4th, but we will have to wait until February of 2009 for results.

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