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Show Small Farms Increase in U.S. The number of small farms and the value of all agricultural product sales increased between the 1978 and 1982 agriculture censuses, preliminary data from the Commerce Com-merce Department's Census Bureau shows. Farms of less than 50 acres increased in-creased 17 percent to 637,000, according ac-cording to the 1982 census, conducted con-ducted in 1983. Their growth helped to keep the total farm loss under 1 percent, one of the smallest declines in recent decades. The new count is 2,241,000 compared with 2,257,000 in 1978. At the other end of the scale, the number of farms with 2,000 acres or more rose by 1,224 between censuses to a total of 64,525. The market value of agricultural products sold amounted to $131.8 billion compared with $107.1 billion in 1978, up 23 percent. Average sales per farm grew to $58,815 from $47,424- Farms with sales of $100,000 or more gained by 80,723 for a total of 302,964. The dollar figures have not been adjusted for inflation during the period. The bureau points out that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), based on the costs of food and beverages, was up 35 percent for food for the same period. Livestock, dairy and poultry products in 1982 accounted for 53 percent of sales, or $69.5 billion; livestock alone brought in 33 percent or $43.5 billion. Other totals were dairy products, $16.3 billion or 13 percent; and poultry, $9.7 billion or 7 percent. Crop sales totaled $62.3 billion, or 47 percent of all sales; grain accounted for more than half. Small farm growth was greatest in Texas, which saw an increase of 14,109 farms under 50 acres to 44,587. This was a 46 percent gain from the 1978 census and small farms now account for one-fourth of the state's farms and ranches. Vermont's increase in-crease was 59 percent, to 1,026. The census data show that large operations continue to dominate sales and production. Here are some figures: Only 1 percent of farms sold 500 or more head of cattle and calves but they had 43 percent of cattle sold. Those selling 500 or more head of hogs totaled 16 percent of farms selling hogs but captured 70 percent of hogs sold. Farms with 20,000 or more hens and pullets comprised only 2 percent of producers but had 79 percent of inventories. Other findings from the 1982 Census of Agriculture; The farmland total of 984.8 million acres was down from 1 billion acres from 1978. Harvested cropland was 326.3 million acres, up 3 percent. There was relatively little change in the number of acres irrigated between 1978 and 1982. This is against the background of an expansion in irrigation from 39.1 million to 49 million acres from 1969 to 1982. In that period, the West gained 14 percent to 26.1 million acres, 8.5 million of it in California. The North Central Region's irrigation doubled, from 5.1 million to 10.9 million acres. In acres harvested, wheat edged out corn, 70.9 million to 69.9 million. Soybeans increased from 61.3 million in 1978 to 64.8 million acres in 1982. The milk cow total rose form 10.2 million to 10.9 million. Broilers sold rose from 3.1 billi6n birds to 3.5 billion, but producer farms declined from 31,743 to 30,104. Key findings of the 1982 Census of Agriculture are summarized in the attached graphs. |