Now that the 2002 Census of Agriculture is complete, there's plenty of data to weed through. Here are some highlights:
-
There are 2,128,982 farms, which is 0.7% of the U.S. population. Each of these farms serves breakfast, lunch and dinner to 134 people, every day of the year.
-
Gross sales from farms in 2002 were $200,646,355,000 and their production expenses came to $173,199,216,000. They put 86% of their gross sales back into the farm.
-
There were 938,279,056 acres in farms and 434,164,946 acres of cropland, of which 302,697,252 acres were harvested.
-
The estimated value of land and buildings on farms is $1,144,905,925,000, (yep, that's $1 trillion) averaging $537,832/farm and $1,213/acre.
For more information, go online to: www.usda.gov/nass/, then click on “Census of Agriculture.”
