News

Census of Ag shows Wisconsin details

A USDA statistician says the Census of Ag shows Wisconsin is a very diverse state, but the dairy industry remains the state’s ag leader.
Greg Bussler says, “Wisconsin farms in 2017 sold 11.4 billion dollars worth of ag products. Milk accounted for 45% of the sales along with grains, cattle, vegetables, poultry, and eggs.”

Bussler tells Brownfield the census also showed organic farming is continuing to grow in Wisconsin. “The number of organic farms (was) up 30% and the value of organic sales more than doubled.”

The average age of farmers is going up, but Bussler says Wisconsin is bucking that trend. “Wisconsin is above the national average as far as the number of young producers, and by young producers, we mean those 35-years-old or less at just under eleven percent.”

Bussler says Wisconsin farmers are growing more than twenty types of field crops, 49 different vegetable crops, and 27 fruit, nut, and berry crops.  He says the largest number of farms in one county is 2,566 in Dane County surrounding Madison.

The Census of Agriculture shows Wisconsin’s dairy industry has some large farms, but that’s not where most of the milk is coming from.  “Even though there’s been a decrease in those, it still remains a strong part of Wisconsin’s dairy industry.”

Bussler says the number of Wisconsin dairy farms has dropped significantly even though cow numbers remain fairly constant. “The number of dairy farms is down about 22% from 2012. The greatest number of dairy farms still in Wisconsin is the small to mid-size farms from 50-199 cows.”

Bussler says the largest group of more than 44-hundred Wisconsin dairy producers has between 50-to-199 cows.  The second largest group of 23-hundred farmers have from 10-49 cows in their herd.

A new data item collected by the Census of Agriculture shows Wisconsin farmers are successfully reaching buyers without the middle man.  Bussler tells Brownfield more farms are selling directly to retail markets, institutions, and food hubs. “About two percent of Wisconsin farms sold directly that way and that accounted for about 125-million dollars worth of sales.”

And, Bussler says this does not count sales to farmers markets, which are also growing.