About. . .

NEW JERSEY AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS

Who We Are and What We Do:
The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is an agency within the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The agency's primary responsibility is to prepare official estimates of agriculture for the nation, and for each state. There are 45 field offices that serve all 50 states. The New Jersey State field office is the New Jersey Agricultural Statistics Service, located in Trenton, NJ.

Field offices collect, verify, and analyze data which are used to prepare statistical estimates. Farmers, ranchers and agribusinesses are the grassroots source of information, collected through voluntary surveys conducted by each state office throughout the year. Survey data are collected and summarized at the state level to provide statistical indications. These indications are analyzed by statisticians in each state office who then make recommendations to the national headquarters in Washington, D.C.. Statisticians in headquarters review the state recommendations and issue the state and national estimates to the public on scheduled dates throughout the year. About 300 national and 9,000 state reports are issued annually. Cooperative agreements with State governments also permit preparation and publication of county-level estimates of crops and livestock for many states. In addition, many field offices conduct surveys for other government agencies and private organizations.

New Jersey Agricultural Statistics publishes several reports which are available by subscription. These reports include:

Weekly information on crop development, published throughout the growing season.
Semi-Monthly "Farm Facts"
Semi-Annual Fertilizer Report
An annual bulletin which includes most of the estimates published by the field office during the year and presents multiple years of data for most series.

Subscriptions and payments are handled by our Headquarters in Washington D.C.. If you would like to subscribe to these publications, download the dos text subscription form and mail it with payment to :

Agricultural Statistics Board Publications

U.S. Department of Agriculture, NASS

Room 5829, South Building

Washington, D.C. 20250-2000

[ Download Subcription Form ]

New Jersey's Agriculture:

New Jersey is actually a peninsula, featuring a landscape that is rich both in variety and scope. The state covers a total area of 8,204.4 square miles, including 7,504.8 square miles of land area and 699.6 square miles of water area. Over 17 percent of New Jersey's land area is composed of farmland. Over 80 varieties of fruits, vegetables and other agricultural are produced by the Garden State.

During 1997, the state's 9,400 farms covered 830,000 acres and gererated cash receipts totaling $777 million. The nursery, greenhouse and sod industry remained the leading commodity group in New Jersey agriculture with cash receipts of $255 million. Cash receipts for vegetables totaled $166 million, followed by fruit at $110 million and equine at $101 million. Field crops brought in nearly $67 million and cash receipts from the state's dairy industry were $41 million. Sales of poultry and eggs generated $26 million. The average per acre value of New Jersey farmland was $8,290 in 1997, the highest per acre value in the nation.

[New Jersey Ag. Statistics Home Page]
[National Ag Statistics Service Home Page]

New Jersey Agricultural Statistics Service
URL:

http://www.usda.gov/nass/SSO/NJ/homepage.htm
Send comments and questions to:
New Jersey Agricultural Statistics Service, at nass-nj@nass.usda.gov
or Phone the New Jersey Agricultural Statistics Service at (609) 292-6385.