Census of Agriculture has a story for every news outlet in rural America

Last week we reported some important national findings of the Census of Agriculture, which is taken every five years. Today, the Daily Yonder has its own report, with a good slideshow of graphics from the census. (We especially like the next-to-last slide, a map localizing the value of crops and livestock produced in 2007.) But the census should be a story in every rural county in the U.S., and even some that are in metropolitan areas, and the data are easy to get.

Here is the home page for the census, which is conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Near the top is a line, "State and County Profiles," which leads you to a map and list of states, and then to maps and lists of counties.

For example, the page for my home county in Southern Kentucky, Clinton County, shows that its agricultural production grew by 48 percent -- even though most farms raised tobacco in 2002 and the federal program of tobacco production quotas and price supports was repealed in 2004. Why was that? I think I know, but the county agricultural extension agent should be able to confirm it for me, and his counterparts in every other county should be able to do likewise.

The county pages also give the number of farms, and the amount of government payments received, in each county in 2002 and 2007. Clinton County's page shows that government payments went up 84 percent, surely because of the so-called "buyout" program that compensated tobacco growers for the loss of their quotas. And despite the end of the tobacco program and the consolidation of farms, the county had exactly the same number of farms, 629, in 2007 that it did in 2002.

The county pages also have charts and graphs showing the number of farms in each of six size categories, how farmland was being used in 2007 (cropland, pasture, woodland and other uses), the county's state and national rankings for agricultural production, the value of sales and the rankings for each crop and type of livestock, the acres used for each major crop, and the number of farms in each of 12 categories of total sales, total and average production expenses, net cash income (total and average), primary occupation of farm operators (farmer or otherwise), and operators by sex, age and race. The page doesn't have 2002 data, but this USDA Web page does, and we'll bet the county Extension office does, too. Do this story!