The National Agricultural Statistics Service estimates it takes 40 to 50 minutes to complete the 2017 Ag Census, but that’s making some big assumptions. In particular, they’re assuming you have not procrastinated on your financial record-keeping and have at your fingertips your 2017 production expenses. Yes, I know you over-achievers out there always promptly enter your expenses into your record-keeping program throughout the year so that at year’s end you can print out a tidy report categorizing your expenditures for each farm enterprise. No doubt you folks submitted your censuses at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, just as soon as you were sure all your expenses were in for the year. If you’re one of those people, congratulations! Please feel free to ignore the rest of this column while you color-code your filing cabinets.

For the rest of us, filling out the Ag Census might take a few more that 50 minutes of preparation. Generally, I do start each year recording expenses as I go, but at some point I start falling behind because I get distracted by more enjoyable activities like hauling manure, castrating calves or thawing frozen water pipes. At some point every winter, when I can’t come up with any more excuses, I hunker down and catch up. Most years I don’t manage to record every stray receipt from under the truck seats until the day before I’m scheduled to meet with my long-suffering tax accountant. But during census years, that wad of miscellaneous expense receipts needs to be processed sooner so I can report my production expenses without making up numbers.

Another problem I have with the census is that I don’t keep records on some of the information requested. For instance, I don’t know how many days I worked at least four hours on an off-farm job last year. Does it count as off-farm work if I’m thinking about writing an article while I’m walking through pig pens? What if I’m thinking about pigs while I’m driving to an interview?

I also have trouble with the section on market value of land. I could base my land value estimate on the auction sale price for some nearby land, but I don’t consider that to be a realistic price. That might be what someone would pay to buy my land, but it’s not what it would take to get me to sell it. In fact, my selling price would vary depending on the buyer. For instance, a neighbor who wants to buy an odd-shaped, hard-to-farm corner to square off his horse pasture might get a different price than someone who wants a piece of my cornfield for a house lot. And I’d accept a lower price from a family member than from the non-farm investor who has been buying up nearby farms and then renting them to some big operator who works fields too wet and leaves ruts everywhere.

It’s too bad the census specifies that land value estimates be listed as dollar figures. Otherwise, I could just write down “priceless” and be done with it.