The Census of Agriculture is conducted every five years. In January 1998, farm operators received questionnaires covering the 1997 calendar year. In February 1999, initial results from that census were made available on the Internet. Reports from this agency are available on the Internet. Many topics of interest to those engaged in rural development are at least partially covered in the Census of Agriculture.
Land use is noted, as are the values of land, buildings, and machinery.
The type of organization for farms is included and so are selected characteristics of farm operators. Percentages identifying farming as the principal occupation ranged from less than 40 in some southern states to more than 70 percent in the Dakotas. Thus, it is relatively easy to determine the extent to which the percentage of operators claiming that farming is their principal occupation has changed between the two most recent agricultural censuses. In no state in the Midwest did the percentage of operators with principal occupations in farming increase from 1992 to 1997. In Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, those declines were more than 7 percentage points, compared with the national decrease of 4.4 points.