Recently, Don Brown, Colorado commissioner of agriculture, made a trip to California on the invitation of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on National Statistics. During that meeting at the University of California, Davis, Brown shared that agriculture is an increasingly complex farm business in an effort to help create a picture of the American farm family and how many conduct their business operations.

That picture of bucolic farm scenes and cattle grazing may look "simple" in the eyes of the untrained observer, but Brown's message to the group was that a string of complex business structures on those farms makes information-gathering difficult.

During his presentation, Brown commented that 97% of farmland in the U.S. is owned by families, but "they still have multiple company structures, just like any other type of business." He noted his own family farm includes multiple generations, tax structures and properties that make sorting and providing data difficult.

He added that pulling together those factual data from those entities is important to "provide a comprehensive snapshot of the state and federal agricultural picture."

The Census of Agriculture, conducted every five years by USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, will be mailed at the end of 2017. It provides a complete count of all U.S. farms, ranches and those who operate them. The census also highlights land use and ownership, operator characteristics, production practices, income and expenditures, and other information. And information from the census provides valuable information for use by a range of groups, from producers to lawmakers, as they work to make informed decisions.

Fine-tuning data-gathering
The meeting where Brown spoke was held to gain insight that may help NASS and the USDA Economic Research Service improve the comprehensiveness and relevance of their surveys, and increase the value of data to users. At the same time, there's an effort to make the survey less complex and less time-consuming for those supplying information. Those data are used to drive government programs and services to help producers make decisions, such as which crops to grow.

Noted Brown: "The goal of our meeting was to provide a personal history of my family farm, and how we’ve provided information to our federal organizations. The information provided is vital to helping shape Colorado’s and our nation’s agricultural community."

As part of his talk, Brown emphasized that farmers and ranchers make decisions for their businesses, the food system and communities. "It is vital that we base these decisions on solid and comprehensive data," he said.

Producers who are new to farming or did not receive a Census of Agriculture in 2012 still have time to sign up to receive the 2017 Census of Agriculture report form by visiting agcensus.usda.gov and clicking on the "Make sure you are counted" button through June 30. NASS defines a farm as any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the census year (2017).

For more information about the 2017 Census of Agriculture and to see how census data are used, visit agcensus.usda.gov or call 800-727-9540.

Source: Colorado Department of Agriculture