nass

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA's rich science and research portfolio.

Earlier this month, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), released the latest count of farms in the United States. The nation has nearly 2.2 million farms, a number that has held pretty steady for the past decade. While this number is important, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Did you know that the number of farms in the United States peaked in 1935 at 6,812,350 operations when the average farm size was 154.8 acres? In comparison, the 2007 Census of Agriculture counted 2,204,792 farms with the average farm size of 418 acres. In celebration of 150 years of service to American agriculture, the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), in partnership with Cornell University’s Mann Library, are making these and many other historical facts available online at http://agcensus.mannlib.cornell.edu

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

When America’s farmers and ranchers traveled from the U.S. mainland to the Aloha state for the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual convention in early January, they had the opportunity to taste the joys of Hawaiian agriculture – some of the most diverse and specialized in our nation.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

While USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is gearing up for the next Census of Agriculture right here in the United States, the agency is also sharing its expertise to help guide agriculture censuses around the world. In December, the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Armenia hosted NASS representatives to help these two nations prepare for their own censuses of agriculture.

This Saturday is National Nut Day, a perfect opportunity to honor nature’s nutritional dynamo– the nut.  It seems that Americans are more than a little nutty about nuts, which are considered specialty crops.  Nearly one out of every 10 of us eats nuts, or a nut product, at least once a day.  Almonds, walnuts and pecans are the top three nuts consumed in the United States* and the production of almonds, walnuts and pistachios has more than doubled in the last decade.

Toda la nacion esta celebrando el mes de la Hispanidad, enfatizando un sin numero de logros y contribuciones realizadas por los Hispano-Americanos en una diversicad de industrias, incluyendo la agricultura.

The whole nation is celebrating the Hispanic Heritage Month, honoring numerous achievements and contributions made by the Hispanic-Americans in many industries, including agriculture.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

It’s no secret that the landscape of rural America and the ways in which farmers and ranchers do business is evolving. These changes are happening not only in the fields, in terms of what is produced and how, but also in the office and home with how producers access information and conduct business.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

Have you ever wondered how American agriculture compares with farming in our neighboring countries to the north and south? In today’s global economy, many people seek information about farmers, farmland and the production of food and other agricultural products around the world. A tripartite committee of agricultural statistical agencies in Mexico, Canada and the United States has launched a new website to make the comparison among the three North American nations easier.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

Earlier this month, representatives of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) spent two weeks contacting farmers and ranchers around the nation to find out how much U.S. farmland is planted to specific crops and to determine the number of livestock on U.S. farms and ranches in 2011.  In all, more than 35,000 interviews were conducted, with Texas accounting for about 5,000 of them.