On February 3 USDA announced the availability of preliminary state and national demographic data for all 50 states, plus final data for Puerto Rico, from the 2002 Census of Agriculture.

Now here’s “the rest of the story” about how USDA employees made it possible.

According to Jay Johnson, executive assistant to the administrator of the National Agricultural Statistics Service, the census of agriculture is currently conducted every five years. “The first one was conducted in conjunction with the 1840 population census,” he noted.

“Just like it says here, principal operators of farms or ranches who are American Indians increased by 19.4 percent from 1997 to 2002,” affirms NASS survey statistician Ginger Harris (left). She and NASS agricultural statistician Jorge Garcia-Pratts are reviewing the contents of preliminary state and national demographic data contained in the 2002 Census of griculture document she is holding. --Photo by Janet Allen

Its purpose, he added, is to gather facts about farms and ranches in every county in the nation--to provide a complete statistical portrait of local and national agriculture.

“The census of agriculture is NASS’s largest information-gathering project for agriculture,” Johnson affirmed.

Kent Hoover, chief of NASS’s Census Planning Branch, said that the 1997 Census of Agriculture--the most recent agriculture census until now--was conducted as a joint effort between NASS and the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

“The Census Bureau started with the planning for the 1997 Census of Agriculture and then that mission was transferred to USDA,” he explained. “The 1997 ag census was then conducted and completed by NASS.” The March 1997 issue of the USDA News carried a story about NASS’s preparation for that census of agriculture.

“So this means that the 2002 Census of Agriculture was the first time that NASS conducted the census of agriculture from start to finish,” Hoover noted.

According to Steve Sakry, NASS census administrator, data collection for the 2002 Census of Agriculture began in December 2002 with an initial mailout--from Jeffersonville, Ind.--of almost three million report forms designed to reach all farms and ranches across the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

Ray Garibay, NASS’s state statistician for Washington, based in Olympia, noted that NASS has the advantage of a network of 46 field offices which have the local presence and knowledge to assist with the collection and review of census information, as well as with public relations.

According to Garibay, ‘enumerators’--who are the ‘interviewers’ for both NASS surveys and the agriculture census--were critical to the census’ success. “For the first time, enumerators across America played a key role in publicizing the 2002 Census of Agriculture to local audiences,” he explained.

The enumerators worked with farm and non-farm community organizations and businesses to reach their customers and members with the ag census message through such communications tools as posters, ads, articles, and presentations. They also answered over 200,000 calls to NASS’s toll-free helpline from farmers and ranchers needing assistance with their ag census report forms, and made follow-up calls and personal visits to producers who had not yet responded to the ag census by mail.

“We’ll all be studying these track lines for additional ag census trends,” notes Janet Allen (right), head of NASS’s Marketing Section, as she and NASS statistical assistants Vivian Howard (left) and Sheila Hall confer on some preliminary state and national demographic data from the 2002 Census of Agriculture. --Photo by Ron Hall

Garibay clarified that enumerators are actually employees of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture under contract with NASS. “That lends credibility when they ask farmers and ranchers for information,” he advised.

Even as late reports were still coming in, staff in every NASS state office across the country began editing and analyzing the reports from agricultural producers to correct anomalies and prepare local and state summaries. Meanwhile, NASS’s headquarters personnel in Washington, DC were programming and adjusting the automated systems that process all the numbers and prepare the actual tables for publication. And that all continues in preparation for the final county-level reports due in June 2004.

“We believe the state and national preliminary numbers provide a good basis for our data users to get a ‘first look’--or preview--of what’s to come,” Hoover said. “Now we’ll continue focusing on the county-level summaries and all the many detailed statistics available in the complete ag census results.”

Sarah Hoffman, head of NASS’s Environmental and Demographics Section, said that the preliminary state and national demographic data on the 2002 Census of Agriculture include gender, race, and ethnicity of operators, residence on or off the farm, days worked off farm, years present on farm, age group categories, and the number of persons living in each household.

Preliminary results show that:

• The average age of American agricultural producers in 2002 was 55.3 years old. This was one year older than the comparable figure from the 1997 ag census.
• 27.2 percent of all agricultural producers were women in 2002. This marks the first measurement of all women involved in day-to-day farming and ranching decisions.
• Principal operators of farms or ranches who are of Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino origin increased by 50.8 percent from 1997 to 2002, with figures of 33,450 in 1997 and 50,443 in 2002.
• Black principal operators of farms or ranches increased by 8.8 percent (26,785 versus 29,145) from 1997 to 2002, and American Indian principal operators increased by 19.4 percent (12,911 versus 15,417) during that same period.
• Ninety percent of America’s agricultural operations are still run by individuals or families, and most are still small farms. More specifically, the majority of farms and ranches--59 percent--had less than $10,000 in sales of agricultural products in 2002.

Hoover noted that the final 2002 Census of Agriculture data at the national, state, and county levels are to be released in June 2004.

“That report,” he emphasized, “will present first-time facts about organic crop acreage and sales, production contracts, and farm computer and Internet use. It will also provide the broader, full range of traditional census data that includes land use and ownership, acres irrigated, crop acreage and quantities harvested, livestock and poultry inventories, value of products sold, participation in federal farm programs, and the market value of land and buildings.”

“So stay tuned,” he quipped.•