The USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service released the results of the 2008 Organic Production Survey. The survey, which is a follow-on to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, is USDA's first-ever wide-scale survey of organic producers in the United States.

The organic survey was conducted in the spring/summer of 2009 for production during calendar year 2008.

The survey counted 14,540 U.S. farms and ranches that were either USDA certified organic or were exempt from certification because their annual organic sales totaled less than $5,000.

California had 2,714 organic farms (nearly 20 percent of U.S. total): Wisconsin was second with 1,222 farms. There were organic farms in all 50 States.

South Dakota had 103 organic farms. The farms consisted of 132,047 acres for production. Ninety nine farms had 61,063 acres of cropland, and 62 farms had 70,984 acres of pastureland/rangeland. Sales of organic produced commodities totaled $15,148,000 dollars.

For complete survey results go to www.agcensus.usda.gov.

Source: USDA NASS