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Register for the 2017 USDA ag census

The USDA will be conducting a new census of agriculture later this year and an economics professor says the census will help policy makers better identify areas that are stressed in this economy.

Todd Kuethe with the University of Illinois says the Ag Census – conducted every five years – is a resource for the development of U.S. farm policy for the next Farm Bill.

“Going into this next Farm Bill, if we have a lot of that census data collected by the time the policy discussions start, you can really target in on who are the vulnerable populations, where are they located and how much in terms of an economic footprint will this impact have,” says Kuethe.

The ag census collects a diverse amount of information from U.S. farms.

“In terms of production practices, equipment use, machinery inputs, as well as all the outputs so like production levels, different commodities, maybe different programs the farm participated in, taxes, basically any kind of thing you’d want to know about the economic activity of any particular farm,” says Kuethe.

Kuethe says information collected in the census takes a year to process. Forms will be mailed to registered farmers at the end of this year.

Farmers can register online to receive a census form in the mail. Forms can also be picked up at local USDA service centers later this year.

Click here to register for the census

Audio: Todd Kuethe, Ag Economics, University of Illinois