Census of Agriculture

Within the context of agriculture, Census of Agriculture is defined as:

A comprehensive set of quantitative information on the agricultural sector of the U.S. economy, broken down to the state and county levels (i.e., number of farms, land in farms, crop acreage and production, livestock numbers and production, production expenses, farm facilities and equipment, farm tenure, value of farm products sold, farm size, type of farm, among other data). The Census, conducted every 5 years, was the responsibility of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of the Census. However, the FY1997 USDA appropriations act (P.L. 104-180, August 6, 1996) transferred funding for the Census of Agriculture to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). NASS released the results of the 1997 Census in 1998.