The attached spreadsheet shows the 2007 and 2012 statewide data by commodity area for women and minority principal farm operators. The data came from the U.S. Agriculture Census.
This information should be useful as agents, specialists, and AREC advisory groups think about who makes up their potential audiences.
A few interesting pieces that stood out to me from the Virginia Ag Census data:
- While the overall number of hog farming principal operators dropped between 2007 and 2012 in Virginia, the number of women hog operators increased significantly
- Same with women vegetable farmers.
- Increases in women operators also occurred between 2007 and 2012 in fruit farming, ornamentals, nursery and floriculture production, cotton, hay, sheep and goat production, and aquaculture.
- The total number of Virginia tobacco farmers dropped between 2007 and 2012, but the number of minority tobacco produces stayed steady.
- The number of minority producers of ornamentals, nursery, and floriculture crops doubled between 2007 and 2012.
County- and city-specific data.
Contact Joe Hunnings if you have questions about this data or how to use it in your program planning.