USGS Agricultural Cropping Practices from 1987 Census of Agriculture

1987 Census of Agriculture data provides county-level estimates of agricultural cropping practices across the conterminous United States. The data includes acres and percentages of county area for crops, derived from surveys of farms selling over $1,000 of products. Polygons representing county boundaries were derived from the 1970 National Atlas Digital Line Graph files.

Use Cases

• Mapping relative amounts of agricultural crops across broad U.S. regions based on county-level estimates.
• Estimating regional cropping-practices for agricultural planning based on census survey data.
• Analyzing changes in agricultural land use by comparing 1987 data with included 1982 Census information.
• Creating visual displays of agricultural activity using GIS polygon data for county boundaries.

Strengths

• Data is based on the comprehensive 1987 Census of Agriculture.
• County boundaries are derived from authoritative 1:2,000,000-scale National Atlas maps.
• Includes both acreage and percentage-of-area metrics for cropping practices.

Limitations

• Data is primarily from 1987, with some 1982 data, making it historical.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Department of Commerce, Census of Agriculture (1989a).

Collection Method

Automated procedure processing raw census data into ARC/INFO coverage attributes.

Time Range

Primarily 1987, with some 1982 data.

Geography

Counties in the conterminous United States.