Program Information

American agriculture is continually counted, measured, priced, analyzed, and reported to provide the facts needed by people working throughout this vast industry. The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service along with the Virginia Field Office of NASS provide timely, accurate, and useful statistics in service to agriculture.

ABCs of Agriculture informs about Virginia's farming community and how it affects you. ABCs of Agriculture are produced by the Virginia Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom (AITC) - an educational program which encourages and enhances agricultural literacy in Grades K-5 and 6-8.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the ABC’s of Agriculture! We’re here today to talk about the letter V which stands for Virginia Agriculture Statistics.

American agriculture is continually counted, measured, priced, analyzed, and reported to provide the facts needed by people working throughout this vast industry. The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service along with the Virginia Field Office of NASS provide timely, accurate, and useful statistics in service to agriculture.

Participating in the fact finding process are thousands of producers and businesses that are the source of NASS reports. The information is provided voluntarily through surveys… and supplemented by crop observations and measurements. This makes the findings from NASS a statistically sound, reliable, and frequently quoted source of agricultural information.

Today, Virginia’s statistical office issues more than 180 reports on average each year…. The agency also conducts Virginia’s Census of Agriculture every 5 years.

What can you find out from these reports??? Everything from production and supplies of food and fiber… prices received and paid by farmers… farm labor and wages…. And even Farm income…to name a few.

So… if you ever wonder how the newscaster knows how many potatoes are grown in Virginia…. they probably got their information on Virginia Agriculture Statistics from a resource directory like this one.

By the way….in 2003…. More than 11 million dollars was generated from Virginia’s potato crop! Wow… who knew!!

For the ABC’s of Agriculture, I’m Professor Brad… see you next time!

Virginia Standards