Ag census shows more smaller and more very large Washington farms

Washington Ag February 6, 2009 There are 39,284 farms in Washington state and that is up nine percent from 2002. Those are numbers released this week by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service from the 2007 Census of Agriculture. Nationally farm numbers increased four percent. David Knopf who heads up the Washington Bureau of the Statistics Service says the state echoes the national trend of more small and very large farms and fewer mid-sized operations. Knopf points to one factor that may have been behind the increase in small farm numbers. Knopf: “Prices that farmers received for their products in 2007 had increased substantially since 2002. And some of these places that might not have qualified as a farm in 2002 all of the sudden, just because of those prices alone not because of a change in their operation, that dollar amount allowed them to be classified as a farm where as they weren’t in 2002.� The majority of Washington farms are smaller operations with more than half characterized as residential/lifestyle or retirement farms. Knopf says Yakima, Grant and Benton are the top three counties in terms of farm numbers, land in farms and market value of production. Knopf: “Yakima county interestingly ranks number 12 in the nation in the value of agriculture products produced in 2007.� The 2007 census counted over 40 percent more female principal farm operators than in 2002 and the count of Hispanic operators grew by nearly 50 percent. A lot more information is available at www.agcensus.usda.gov I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.