National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), 2002 CENSUS OF AGRICULTURE: Results of the 2002 Census of Agriculture are published in a series of reports that provide data at the national, state, and county (or equivalent) levels for the U.S.

The Census of Agriculture is the leading source of facts and statistics about the Nation's agricultural production. It provides a detailed picture of U.S. farms and ranches every five years and is the only source of uniform, comprehensive agricultural data for every state and county or county equivalent in the U.S. National, state, and county data are published in detailed national and state tables for the U.S., and in state and county tables for each state. These reports include data on number and size of farms; crop production; livestock, poultry, and their products; tenure, age, and principal occupation of operator and up to three operators; type of organization; value of products sold; government payments plus market value of agricultural products sold; production expenses; direct marketing; landlord expenses; computer use; production contracts; fertilizers and chemicals; machinery and equipment; farm labor and migrant workers; value of land and buildings; agricultural activity on American Indian reservations; grain storage capacity; land use; irrigation; and the North American Industry Classification System.

FARM DEFINITION: The census definition of a farm is 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. The definition has changed nine times since it was established in 1850. The current definition was first used for the 1974 Census of Agriculture and has been used in each subsequent agriculture census. This definition is consistent with the definition used for current USDA surveys. REFERENCE PERIOD: Crop production is measured for the calendar year, except for a few crops such as avocados, citrus, and olives for which the production year overlaps the calendar year. * Livestock, poultry, and machinery and equipment inventories, market value of land and buildings, and grain storage capacity are measured as of December 31, of the census year. * Crop and livestock sales, farm expenses, income from federal farm programs, irrigation, Commodity Credit Corporation loans, Conservation Reserve and Wetlands Reserve Program participation, direct sales income, chemical and fertilizer use, farm-related income, and hired farm labor data are measured for the calendar year.

2002 CENSUS OF AGRICULTURE, National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), USDA Physical & Mailing Address: Room 5835, South Building 1400 Independence Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20250-2000 Agricultural Statistics Hotline: 800-727-9540 Web site: www.usda.gov/nass/ e-mail: nass@nass.usda.gov

Process_Description:

Executed the 2002 NASS Census of Agriculture downloadable application, agcen2002.exe (v1.1), and extracted and converted the original source ".DBF" format (Microsoft Visual Foxpro) data tables to a more universally used tabular data format, and imported the data tables into a Microsoft Access database.

The following county data tables (from Ag Census Chapter 2) were imported in the Access database: 
Table 1, County Summary Highlights; 
Table 10, Irrigation 2002 and 1997; 
Table 24, Grains/Corn Sorghum Wheat and Other Field Crops;
Table 25, Cotton Tobacco Soybeans Dry Beans Peas Potatoes Sugar Crops Peanuts;
Table 26, Field Seeds, Grass Seeds, Hay, Forage and Silage;
Table 27, Other Field and Forage Crops;
Table 29, Vegetables and Melons Harvested for Sale;
Table 31, Fruits and Nuts;
Table 32, All Berries Harvested for Sale;
Table 33, Berries Harvested for Sale;
Table 34, Nursery Greenhouse Floriculture Mushrooms Sod and Vegetable Seeds Grown for Sale;
Table 35, Woodland Crops 2002 and 1997; and
Table 39, Fertilizers and Chemicals Applied.

Item lookup tables, a flag definition table, and item group lookup tables were created.  Each data table has a descriptive table of Ag Census readme comments that accompanies data extraction from the Visual FoxPro application.  A table describing National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) crop category correspondence to relevant items is also included.

County matrix tables showing individual items in columns were generated from queries of the extracted tables.  All_AgItems refers to item categories from all tables except for Table 39, which is presented in All_Tbl39Items.  Where data was not disclosed (D), a value of 0.001 was inserted in the matrix table to distinguish a county where crop is grown from counties where zeroes reflect actual conditions in the county.  Where a cell is null in the matrix tables, no data were provided on that county/crop item.

AgCensus Database Description: 1) Table Desciptions: - All_AgItems1997: County matrix of items from Tables 10 , 24-27, 29, and 32-35. Table 1 and 31 do not have values for 1997 in this database. - All_AgItems2000: County matrix of Items from Tables 1, 10 , 24-27, 29, and 31-35. - All_Tbl39Items: County matrix of both 1997 and 2000 Table 39 Items. - DataFlag: Codes to describe zero data values in original tables - Geotree: Code to describe geographic reference - Items: List of Items available in database - Items_ShortList: List of items in County matrix tables (All_*) - NLCD_Desc: National Land Cover Dataset Data desciption for code assigned in Items table. - Table Fields: Field descriptions for tables In database - Tables: List of Census County tables 2) Abbreviations and Symbols: The following abbreviations and symbols are used throughout the tables: - Represents zero. (D) Withheld to avoid disclosing data for individual farms. (H) Standard error or relative standard error of estimate is greater than or equal to 99.95 percent. (IC) Independent city (L) Standard error or relative standard error of estimate is less than .05 percent. (NA) Not available or not published. Some historic data are not published because they are not comparable, electronic files are unavailable, or re-summarizing could compromise respondent confidentiality. (X) Not applicable (Z) Less than half of the unit shown cwt Hundredweight sq ft Square feet

2002 CENSUS OF AGRICULTURE

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