Hoppe, Robert A.

English

Research Papers in Economics

  1
Agricultural Outlook Forum, 2004        Presented: Thursday, February 19, 2004 
 
RESPONSE:  IMPACT ON KNOWLEDGE OF FARM OPERATORS 
 
Robert A. Hoppe 
Agricultural Economist, Economic Research Service 
U.S. Department of Agriculture 
 
Rich Allen and Jill Findeis discussed the information released in the preliminary report of the 2002 
Census of Agriculture.  More specifically, they pointed out that the 2002 Census of Agriculture: 
•  Allows counting more than one operator per farm.  Previous censuses applied the “one farm, 
one operator” principal. 
•  Collects detailed information for up to three operators.  Previous censuses collected this 
information on just one operator. 
•  Adjusts for undercoverage.  Except for the 1978 Census of Agriculture, previous censuses 
published unadjusted data, with the exception of adjustment percentages for a few data items. 
•  Collects information on operator households.  The 2002 Census of Agriculture is the first to 
collect information on (1) the number of households sharing net income and (2) the number of 
people in the households of the principal, second, and third operators. 
 
I will discuss the effects of these changes on our knowledge of farm operators.  In most cases, I am only 
emphasizing what Rich and Jill have already stated.  Their presentations were clear, and the effects of 
this new census information regarding our knowledge of farm operators are self-evident. 
 
Counting and describing Multiple Operators 
 
The “one farm, one operator” rule is a simplifying assumption used in past censuses.  We have known 
for some time that this assumption is false, but the 2002 Census of Agriculture shows how false it is.  
Counting all the operators increases the count of operators by nearly 50 percent, from 2.1 operators to 
3.1 million.  As pointed out by Rich, counting all operators for each operation gives a better estimate of 
the number of people actually involved in managing farms. 
 
Knowing the characteristics of the additional operators—collected by the 2002 Census—is also 
important.  Jill did a good job of describing these additional operators.  Between one-half and two-thirds 
of the additional operators are women, depending on race and Hispanic origin.  More than half of the 
additional operators work off-farm, with variation by gender, race, and Hispanic origin. 
 
Jill mentioned the importance of knowing the age of the second and third operators; I will expand on this 
point.  Information on these additional operators is especially important when trying to understand the 
future of agriculture, given the advanced age of principal farm operators.  Compared with the labor force 
in general, primary operators are old.  Their average age was 55 in 2002, up from 50 in the late 1970’s.  
The advanced age of principal operators has led to concern about the future of farming as older farmers 
leave the business. 
 
Finding replacements for exiting older farmers, however, may be less of a problem than indicated by age 
statistics for primary operators.  At least some replacements for principal operators are currently 
working as secondary operators alongside older operators.  The 2002 Census, by collecting information   2
on up to three operators, should shed some light on the number replacement farmers currently available 
on farms. 
 
Jill did not show how many older operators—say, 55 years old or more—farm with a younger second or 
third operator.  This is not a criticism of Jill’s paper.  She did all that was possible, given the layout of 
the preliminary tables. 
 
Coverage Adjustment 
 
The 2002 Census goes further in adjusting for undercoverage than previous censuses.  It used an area 
frame to adjust all its data for undercoverage at the national, State, and county level.  The 1978 Census 
also adjusted its data for undercoverage, but just down to the State level.  In contrast the 1987, 1992, and 
1997 censuses each published unadjusted data, except for adjustment percentages for a few data items in 
an appendix table.  The 1982 Census did not even publish the adjustment percentages. 
 
The coverage adjustment eliminates two long-standing shortcomings of the published census data.  First, 
as explained by Rich, adjusting for undercoverage gives a farm count more representative of all farm 
operations, particularly small and minority farms.  Second, the farm count from the census now should 
now track the official farm count more closely.
1 
 
There is an additional benefit from the coverage adjustment.  The adjusted census count will also be 
closer to the count from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), since the ARMS farm 
count is weighted to agree with official farm count.  ARMS is an annual sample survey that collects 
detailed financial data on farm businesses and the operators and households that run them.  The survey is 
conducted jointly by NASS and the Economic Research Service (ERS). 
 
Having the census and ARMS more closely aligned means that it will be easier to use them in 
conjunction with each other.  We can take advantage of both the detailed data collected by ARMS and 
the ability of the Census to provide county-level data.  ARMS can be used to generate detailed 
information for farms and their operators, while the census can be used to generate less detailed 
information, but at a much finer geographic level.  How well the undercoverage adjustment works at the 
county level, however, will be clearer as analysts work with the data.  Making undercoverage 
adjustments down to the county level is new.   
 
Additional Household Information 
 
The 2002 Census of Agriculture is the first Census to collect basic information on operator households.  
Two items were released in the preliminary report: 
•  A count of the number of households sharing the net income of the operation. 
•  A count of the number of persons in the households of the principal, second, and third operators.   
A related item, percentage of the principal operator’s household income from the operation, will be 
released later. 
 
Knowing the number of households sharing income and the number of people in the principal, second, 
and third operator households should go a long way in understanding how farming is organized today.  
As pointed out by Jill, only 21 percent of farms share income with more than one household.  However, 
                                                 
1 Rich covered the second point in his paper, distributed at this Forum, but not in his presentation.   3
these farms are more likely to have high sales, and the new information will help use know more about 
the households involved in larger, more commercially oriented farms. 
 
Knowing the share of household income from the farm can be used with days worked off-farm and 
principal occupation to gain a better a better understanding how income from both farm and off-farm 
sources contributes to the well-being of farm households.  Jill has a good start on this information.  
Other data sources, such as ARMS can provide similar information, but the census has the advantage of 
being a complete enumeration, making it statistically more reliable than a sample, particularly at the 
county level. 
 
Historic Comparability in Perspective 
 
The coverage adjustment and the way the Hispanic origin and racial classification questions are asked 
reduce the comparability between the 2002 Census and previous censuses.
2  This reduction in 
comparability may cause concern among some census data users.  For perspective, however, past 
changes also affected the comparability of census data over time.  Consider some examples drawn from 
Rich’s paper: 
•  The farm definition changed seven times since the census began in the mid-1800’s. 
•  CRP and WRP farms were added to the census count in 1997.  The 1997 count also included 
some additional establishments not considered as farms prior to the adoption of the North 
American Industry Classification system. 
•  The census shifted from personal interviews to mail questionnaires to collect the data. 
•  The Census Bureau adjusted the 1978 Census for undercoverage, but not subsequent censuses. 
Despite these changes, analysts still made comparisons among censuses.  Even the changes introduced 
in the 2002 Census do not prevent comparisons over time.  Rich was able to adjust past census data to 
create the time series he discussed. 
 
Concern over comparability should not prevent changes to improve the quality of census data and efforts 
to collect data more representative of current state of the farm sector.  We gain a great deal of new, 
relevant information about farm operators, their households, and their farms from the 2002 Census. 
                                                 
2 Changes in the Hispanic origin and racial classification questions were discussed in Rich’s paper, but 
not in his presentation. 

RESPONSE: IMPACT ON KNOWLEDGE OF FARM OPERATORS

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