Saturday, February 7, 2009

~ The Benefits of Farming are catching on - Again....




I was listening to the morning news and was very happy and surprised to hear the following:
According to the federal government's 2007 Census of Agriculture - there were 33,112 farms in New England in 2007. In 2002 there were 28, 254. The Department of Agriculture does this Census every five years. I thought at the time that this Census was a pain in the butt. I still do and I filled it out reluctantly but it does have a purpose obviously.
Much to my surprise, MAINE has more farms - 8,136 than any other New England State. Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island are all considered part of the New England States. Every state showed an increase in the number of farms between 2002 and 2007.
Farm acreage was up as well. New England farms totaled more than 4 million acres in 2007 which is an increase of 50,000 acres from 2002.
Personally, I think this is awesome information. I hope the number of farms continues to grow. I'll always do all I can to help anyone who is just starting out. It's a good life and we eat good too!
Find information for your state here : http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/

6 comments:

Michelle said...

That is fantastic! A little hard to believe as we watch farmland getting developed out here, but I haven't heard any reports. Did you by chance catch a website where such information on a national scale might be available?

Throwback at Trapper Creek said...

That is great news, I cringe when I see farms being subdivided. I don know out here at least there are a lot of young people wanting to start farming. Great post.

threecollie said...

Strangely our county lost farms, but it may be because the Amish, which have moved in in droves, were not accurately counted.

Unknown said...

That is what I call good new!! I have been reading also that the number of women farmers is also on the rise, nationwide. There is hope.....I would move up to Vermont or Maine in a heartbeat but the teaching salary in that area just does not compete with it here:( I actually had seriously looked into moving there about 3 years ago.....oh, well...Ohio it shall be:)

Egghead said...

I am glad to hear that farms are increasing. I feared that they were becoming a thing of the past. I agree with eating well. I grew up on a farm and we may not have had a lot of nice new things but we always had an abundance of good fresh food.

Phill said...

Thats wonderful! What a boost in the statistics. Very exciting, and evidence that a great deal of people are changing their thinking. I'm assuming these are just the farms that are registered with the USDA? Imagine how large the numbers would be if you added in modest homesteads and small holdings. Exciting!