2022 Census of Agriculture underway, USDA mails forms to nation’s producers

The data inform decisions about policy, programs, rural development, research, and more

Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) mailed the 2022 Census of Agriculture paper questionnaires to all known agriculture producers across the nation and Puerto Rico. Last month, producers in the states received their survey codes with an invitation to respond online. Any producer who did not respond online now has the option to complete the ag census at agcounts.usda.gov or by mail. Producers who have already responded to the 2022 Census of Agriculture online do not need to respond again. The deadline for response is Feb. 6, 2023.

“We encourage producers to respond online,” said USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Administrator Hubert Hamer. “We know producers are busy, which is why NASS worked to make responding to the ag census more convenient than ever before. The online questionnaire is secure and user friendly with several time saving features, such as skipping questions that do not pertain to the operation, pre-filling some information with previously reported data, and automatically calculating totals.”

The Census of Agriculture remains the nation’s only comprehensive and impartial agriculture data for every state, county, and U.S. territory. Farm operations of all sizes, urban and rural, which produced and sold, or normally would have sold, $1,000 or more of agricultural products in 2022, are included in the ag census. The data inform decisions about policy, programs, rural development, research, and more. The Census of Agriculture is the producer’s voice in the future of American agriculture.

Responding to the Census of Agriculture is required by law under Title 7 USC 2204(g) Public Law 105-113. The same law requires NASS to keep all information confidential, to use the data only for statistical purposes, and only publish in aggregate form to prevent disclosing the identity of any individual producer or farm operation. NASS will release the results of the ag census in 2024.

To learn more about the Census of Agriculture, visit www.nass.usda.gov/agcensus.