Census of Ag Part 3

Census of Ag Part 3. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

This week we have been talking with Carol House, USDA’s National Ag Statistics Service’s Deputy Administrator about the just released 2007 Census of Agriculture. The new census shows that overall both small and large farms have increased in the U.S. while the medium sized farm has declined. House says the report is broken down by state and by county and she goes through some of the Northwest numbers.

HOUSE: The number of farms for Idaho is up 1%. The market value of production of what is produced in Idaho was up 46% and the average market value of production per farm was up 44%. With Washington, their number of farms was up even greater than Idaho. Washington had a 9% increase in farm numbers but the land in farms actually went down 2%.

The size of farms went down even with the overall increase since most of those new farms were small.

HOUSE: The market value of production went up 27% not nearly as much as that in Idaho probably because Idaho was producing more of where there was a commodity price increase. Washington, even though it’s heavy in wheat, it also has a lot of vegetables, fruits, that sort of thing that didn’t see the same increase in market value.

But House says Oregon’s numbers reflected a downward trend.

HOUSE: Now Oregon stands out a little bit differently than the other NW states. It actually was the only one that went down in the number of farms and it also went down in the land in farms but no change in the average size of farm. The market value of production in Oregon went up 37% and the average market value per farm went up 43%.

USDA is using the information from the 2007 Census of Ag to make policy decisions in the coming year but bottom line according to House is the information needs to be shared with the public.

HOUSE: All of us involved in agriculture really need to educate the public about where our food comes from and how difficult it is to produce that food and produce it with a reasonable income and return for that effort. And I think it is information like the Census that shows not only where it comes from but also the great diversity in agriculture

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.