The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service will release the 2022 Census of Agriculture data on Feb. 13. NASS concluded the data collection this summer with a preliminary national return rate of 61 percent. The ag census happens once every five years. It went to more than 3 million producers across the U.S. and Puerto Rico late last year.
NASS plans to release the data from the 2022 Puerto Rico Census of Agriculture in summer 2024. Early next year, NASS will conduct the Census of Agriculture in the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and U.S. Virgin Islands.
“Ag census data will inform decisions about policy, farm and conservation programs, rural development, research, technology development, ag education, and more over the next several years,” says NASS Administrator Hubert Hamer. “These data will have a very real impact on producers, their farming operations, and communities.”
The ag census data will be available here: https://www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus/
Like all NASS data, ag census data will be available in aggregate form only. This ensures that no individual operation or producer can be identified, as required by federal law.
“NASS staff are currently doing extensive analyses of each response,” says NASS’s Census and Survey Division Director Barbara Rater. “We use trusted statistical methods to account for nonresponse, under-coverage, and misclassification to continue to produce accurate data down to the county level.”
In addition to the U.S. territory ag census data collection, two ag census special studies that will provide more in-depth information on certain industries will happen this fall and winter. These are the 2023 Census of Aquaculture and the 2023 Irrigation and Water Management Survey. These questionnaires will be mailed to the producers who reported these activities in the 2022 Census of Agriculture.
