Cheese and So Much More: Ag Census Data Show Multi-Faceted Wisconsin Farm Economy

"Wisconsin (PDF, 941 KB) is known as America’s Dairyland; however, the 2017 Census of Agriculture data show us that Wisconsin has a diverse agricultural industry. It’s no surprise Wisconsin ranks number one in cheese production, but did you know it also ranks number one in corn for silage, cranberry, and snap bean production?

On the livestock side, Wisconsin is number one in milk goats and mink pelts. According to the 2017 Census of Agriculture, Wisconsin farmers sold $11.4 billion in agricultural products and ranked ninth nationally in value of products sold. Sixty-four percent of these sales came from livestock, poultry, and their products, while 36 percent came from crop sales.

Although the number of farms and land in farms decreased from 2012, the average farm size increased 6 percent. In 2017, Wisconsin had 64,793 farms and 14.3 million acres in farms with an average farm size of 221 acres. Forty-eight percent of farms had sales of less than $10,000. Wisconsin ranks number one in the number of dairy farms with 9,037 milk cow farms. That can make a lot of cheese! The state ranks second in the number of organic farms with 1,537 organic farms.." 
Wisconsin 2017 Farm Census

USDA Releases Major Report on Agricultural Transportation
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture today released to Congress a comprehensive report on agricultural transportation in the United States, the first ever of this magnitude. The report, Study of Rural Transportation Issues, was mandated by the 2008 Farm Bill and covers the four major modes of transportation commonly used by agriculture in the United States-truck, rail, barge, and ocean vessel...

The report examines some of the major issues facing agricultural transportation, including: the dramatic effect of deregulation on the rail industry, a growing gap for funding the inland waterways and highway systems, availability of containers and ocean vessel capacity, and the infrastructure that may be needed to support a projected increase in biofuel transportation.


The report also discusses the current approach to transportation policy in the United States, in which each mode of transportation is often considered separately without an overarching view of the flow of freight through all the modes.


Study of Rural Transportation Issues may be found on the Agricultural Marketing Service website at: www.ams.usda.gov/RuralTransportationStudy."