Agricultural census found 866 farms in Albemarle in 2022, down five percent from 2017 

There were 3,340 fewer farms in Virginia in 2022 than in 2017 and 9,481 fewer farms than in 1997. That’s according to the latest five-year Census of Agriculture produced by the federal government. 

“The agriculture census definition of a farm is any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the census year,” reads the introduction to the census which is produced by the National Agricultural Statistics Service. 

The Census of Agriculture dates back to 1840 and is conducted for many reasons and one purpose is to allocate funds for farm programs and to inform agricultural programs. The records track a continued decline in the number of farms in Virginia and an increase of the land value for all farms. (view the data for Virginia)

In 1997 there were over 8.75 million acres considered to be farmland compared to 7.3 million acres in 2022. The average market value of land and buildings jumped from $384,979 in 1997 to $994,096 in 2022. The average size of a farm stayed relatively the same going from 177 acres to 187 acres. 

In Albemarle, there were 866 farms in 2022, down from 913 in 2017. There were 167,583 acres in agricultural production in 2022. Of those, 628 farms have 42,417 acres classified as cropland and 551 of those farms harvested 34,279 acres. 

The number of farms listed as having cropland actually increased from 540 in 2017, but more of that land was actually in production with 40,382 acres harvested in 2017. 

Of those farms, 298 are classified as having cattle with an inventory of 18,134 cows with 10,069 of them listed as beef cows and only 232 of them listed as dairy. The rest are unclassified. In 2017, there were 411 farms with cattle in Albemarle. 

There were 29 hog and pig farms in Albemarle in 2017, a number that dropped to 21 in 2022. The number of sheep farms increased from 59 to 70 with a corresponding increase of about 900 head for a total of 2,847 sheeple. 

There are 200 horse farms with a total inventory of 1,639. 

The average farm in Albemarle is losing money with an average net cash income per farm of a negative $16,033. There were 1,298 people employed as hired farm labor. 

Here are some highlights from other counties:

• There were 289 farms in Fluvanna County with a total of 49,499 acres with an average size of 171 acres. In 2017, there were 273 farms. 
• There were 187 farms in Greene County with a total of 30,811 acres with an average size of 165 acres. The number of farms is down from 214 in 2017. 
• There were 452 farms in Louisa County with a total of 86,660 acres in production. The average size is 192 acres. Like Fluvanna, there are more farms than in 2017 when 231 were recorded by the Census of Agriculture. 
• In Nelson County, there were 399 farms in 2022 with 68,566 acres considered agricultural. The average farm size is 172 acres. There were 409 farms in 2017. 
• Looking across the mountain, there were 1,460 acres in Augusta County with 243,974 acres in production. The average farm size is 167 acres. There were 1,665 farms in 2017. 

There’s a lot in this document and anyone with an interest in agriculture should dig into the data. And let me and others know what you find! 

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