The nation's 2.8 million farmers, including about 200,000 in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, will get a chance to help their futures this Christmas.

Allen Slusher, 9, leads a feeder calf through a gate held by his brother, Tyler, 8, at their grandfather's Jacksonburg farm. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        Anyone who sells more than $1,000 a year in crops, livestock or produce will receive the 2002 agriculture census form in December.

        By answering basic questions about acreage, land use and inventories, they will contribute to a compilation of data on the nation's agricultural community.

        Census results, to be released in February 2004, will help analysts spot new trends at the county, state and national levels. Legislators can research new farming policies.

        And farmers can best gauge how to profit from their farmland even as new subdivisions continue to overwhelm old silos.

        “It's smart to fill out the forms just so they have an idea who still is out there,” said Curtis Cutter, 39, whose 150-acre farm in Dillsboro, Ind., has been in his family for 75 years. “We don't want them to forget that there are still farmers who make sure there is food on the table. We don't want kids to forget ... where it all comes from.” He and his wife, Cathy, once thought they could spend the rest of their lives farming. Now they both work full-time jobs to make ends meet.

        Mr. Cutter works for the Dearborn County Highway Department; his wife, at the Dillsboro branch of the Friendship State Bank. When they get home each day, they check on their 30 breed cows.

IF YOU GO

County fairs in the Tristate will help spread the word among farmers about the importance of the 2002 agricultural census. This is the local fair schedule: • Warren County Fair     When: July 15-20     Where: Warren County Fairgrounds, 665 N. Broadway, Lebanon     Information: (513) 932-2636 or web site     • Kenton County Fair & Horse Show     When: July 15-21     Where: Fairgrounds at Taylor Mill Road (Ky. 16) and Harris Pike, Independence     Information: (859) 356-3738 or web site     • Butler County Fair     When: July 21-27     Where: Butler County Fairgrounds, 1715 Fairgrove Ave., Hamilton     Information: (513) 892-1423 or web site     • Clermont County Fair     When: July 21-27     Where: Clermont County Fairgrounds, 1000 Locust St., Owensville     Information: web site     • Hamilton County Fair     When: July 31-Aug. 4     Where: Hamilton County Fairgrounds, 7700 Vine St., Carthage     Information: 761-4224 or web site     • Grant County Fair     When: July 26-Aug. 3     Where: Grant County Park, U.S. 25, south of Crittenden     Information: (859) 824-3355     • Boone County Fair & Horse Show     When: Aug. 5-10     Where: Boone County Fairgrounds, Ky. 338, five miles west of Florence Mall, Burlington     Information: web site     • Alexandria Fair & Horse Show     When: Aug. 28-Sept. 2     Where: Campbell County Fairgrounds, Fairgrounds Road off Ky. 10, Alexandria     Information: (859) 635-2667

        Their days are long, and they constantly urge their children, Cassie, 15, and Clay, 12, to get a college education. They don't want the two, who have been raising hogs for this summer's county fairs, to experience their own uncertainties.

        “Farming's gotten to be big business,” Mr. Cutter said. “You've got to do more than drive a tractor. There isn't enough (money) coming in rather than going out.”

        To all their farming friends, the Cutters plead: “Fill (the census forms) out and send them in.” It's the only way the U.S. Department of Agriculture can keep accruing accurate, comprehensive data on the nation's agriculture community, they said.

        Farmers are eager to fill out the form; the response rate typically is more than 85 percent, said agency officials. The national average for people returning their 2000 U.S. Census forms was 67 percent.

        The U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees this census, conducted every five years.

        The nation has lost more than 1.2 million farms since the 1960s, according to agriculture census data. Between 1992 and 1997, the loss amounted to more than 13,000 farms.

        Ohio lost more than 2,000, with Butler, Clermont and Warren counties each losing more than 50. Meanwhile, in all three states, the average farm size grew by at least five acres.

        Those figures show that small farms seem to be getting squeezed out as larger, more corporate farms prosper.

        Wayne Matthews, who works for the USDA's National Agriculture Statistics Service in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, will oversee Ohio's agriculture census effort. He hopes to inspire other farming officials and farmers to spread word of the census' importance.

        That message already is being conveyed on the radio, in farming newsletters and at county fair information booths.

        Filling out the form “is for (the farmers') benefit. It's a measure of where farmers and ranchers stand,” Mr. Matthews said. “It is the most comprehensive source of data.”

        Steve Bartels, an agricultural extension agent for Ohio State University's program in Butler County, stresses the census on a daily radio show.

        Farming in the Midwest is changing, he said. Not only are farmers raising llamas and ostriches, but the states once known for growing corn and soybeans and raising hogs and cattle are now feeling pressure to become more like the East Coast, where farms are smaller, more intensive niche operations. These days, farmers “are not going to make their sole living from the farm. Folks need good information, since less and less of our population is directly involved in agriculture,” Mr. Bartels said.

        At last month's Dearborn County Fair in Lawrenceburg, the Cutters took note of how things have changed in southeastern Indiana, especially with the arrival of riverboat casinos. If the census helps politicians realize that this is what Dearborn County farmers are competing against, the Cutters will be pleased.

        People “are more concerned about the boat across the street than they are about the farmers,” Mr. Cutter said.

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