The Census of Agriculture Shows Progress in Maintaining Diverse Producers in Agriculture- July 7, 2018

The Census of Agriculture Shows Progress in Maintaining Diverse Producers in Agriculture

by Rural Coalition, May 2015
The Rural Coalition and its member and allies now have the data to demonstrate real results in our shared work of the past two decades to achieve equity and transformation in agriculture and to keep farm families on the land. The 2012 Census of Agriculture, with most data collected in 2013 and released earlier this year, documents that historically discriminated farmers and ranchers have not only stemmed previous declines in their participation in U.S. Agriculture, but significantly increased their connection with USDA.

The new Agriculture Census shows a combined increase of 8,372 American Indian, African American and Asian American principal operators and an increase of 11,430 Hispanic principal operators. While there may be overlaps between the race and ethnicity categories, the combined total growth among is just shy of 20,000 principal operators.

While not all of these are new producers, the numbers show that not only have retired producers been replaced, but new producers or new to USDA producers have replaced them. This net increase reflects a contribution of almost 20% toward the Secretary of Agriculture’s stated goal of 100,000 new farmers.

cow.png
2018-08-31.png

For more information contact Lorette Picciano of Rural Coalition at lpicciano@ruralco.org.