
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, November 10, 1994                   TAG: 9411100108
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

FARM NUMBERS HIT PRE-CIVIL WAR LEVEL

Continuing a trend that began six decades ago, the number of American farms has dipped below 2 million for the first time since before the Civil War, the Census Bureau said Wednesday.

The bureau, which produces a farm census every five years, counted 1,925,300 farms in the United States in 1992, the lowest number since 1850. The decline in the number of farms has been steady since 1935, when the total peaked at 6.8 million as the Depression began the migration off the land and into the cities.

The number of farms continues to shrink despite Thomas Jefferson's view that ``the small landowners are the most precious part of society.'' But at the same time, farms are also ever more efficient and productive.

The Census Bureau defines a farm as any entity that produces or has the ability to produce $1,000 a year worth of agricultural products, such as beef, hogs, poultry, grains, fruits or vegetables.

Rural demographers say such a liberal definition of what constitutes a farm may overstate the number of working farms. When only working farms are considered, experts in the agricultural economy say, the abiding long-term trend has led to increased consolidation of agricultural holdings into fewer and fewer hands.

The bureau reported that while the number of farms and the amount of farm acreage dropped from 1987 to 1992, crop sales rose by 28 percent. There are fewer farms, said Jorge Garcia-Pratts, an agricultural statistician at the Census Bureau, ``but they are producing much more.''

by CNB