In 1791, President George Washington, spurred by an inquiry, wrote to several farmers requesting information on land values, crops, yields, livestock prices, and taxes. It was in effect, the Nation's first documented agricultural survey.

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln founded the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) with one of its missions being the dissemination of information about U.S. agriculture. One year later, the first USDA report was released.

Today, the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) conducts hundreds of surveys every year and prepares reports covering virtually every aspect of U.S. agriculture. Production and supplies of food and fiber, prices paid and received by farmers, farm labor and wages, farm finances, chemical use, and changes in the demographics of U.S. producers are only a few examples.

NASS is committed to providing timely, accurate, and useful statistics in service to U.S. agriculture. To uphold our continuing commitment, NASS will:

• Report the facts on American agriculture, facts needed by people working in and depending upon U.S. agriculture.
  
• Provide objective and unbiased statistics on a preannounced schedule that is fair and impartial to all market participants.
  

• Conduct the Census of Agriculture every five years, the only source of consistent, comparable, and detailed agricultural data for every county in America .

• Serve the needs of our data users and customers at a local level through our network of State field offices and our cooperative relationship with universities and State Departments of Agriculture.
  
  
• Safeguard the privacy of farmers, ranchers, and other data providers; we guarantee that confidentiality and data security continue to be our top priorities.
  
  

  Agriculture counts and NASS counts for U.S. agriculture.