COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – The last five years have been good to Ohio’s farmers.
Newly released Census data shows the market value of agricultural products sold by Ohio farmers soared between 2007 and 2012.
The data says the value of crops including nursery and greenhouse crops rose from $7 billion in 2007 to $10 billion in 2012.
The same data shows the value of livestock rose from $2.9 billion in 2007 to $3.5 billion in 2012.
These increases came at a time when crop prices hit record highs.
Nationwide, agriculture has experienced a boom, with market values of crops, livestock and total agricultural products reaching record highs even as the amount of U.S. farmland declined.
A new government survey says the number of U.S. farms dropped to 2.1 million in 2012, about a 4 percent drop from five years earlier. But some of the bigger farms got bigger. The average farm grew from 418 to 434 acres.
The data showed the number of farms in Ohio dropped slightly during the years measured by the Census, from 75,861 in 2007 to 75,462 in 2012.
The number of very small and very large farms both dropped, while the number of farms between 50 and 500 acres grew.