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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Adviser: Undercounting farms costs N.M. millions
  • Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 20:27:52 -0600


Adviser: Undercounting farms costs N.M. millions
Request will be made to recount minority and small farmers
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=7&ArticleID=42896
Sunday, April 04, 2004
STACI MATLOCK | The New Mexican

The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture census shows New Mexico joining the
rest of the country in losing farmers and farm land every day.

But the national Advisory Committee on Agricultural Statistics, says the 2002
Agriculture Census severely undercounted American Indian farmers and probably
small-scale Hispanic farmers in the state, according to one committee member.

That means New Mexico is losing out on federal money. "Under my estimates, at
least 90 percent of Native American producers in the state have been
undercounted," said Edmund Gomez of the Alcalde Sustainable Agriculture
Center, who was appointed to the Advisory Committee last year by U.S.
Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman.

The low numbers could be costing the state millions of dollars, he said.

Just as public schools receive a set amount of state money for every student,
states receive some federal agriculture dollars for farmers and ranchers. For
every farmer and acre of productive land lost, the state loses federal money
for conservation programs, agriculture extension and other land-related
projects, according to Gomez, director of the New Mexico State University
Rural Agricultural Improvement and Public Affairs Project.

Gomez was one of several agriculture specialists speaking to producers
gathered at the Northern New Mexico Growers Conference in EspaƱola Saturday
at Northern New Mexico Community College.

The U.S.D.A. conducts a national survey of agriculture producers every five
years. The 2002 census showed New Mexico losing 1.5 farmers or ranchers a day
and 758 acres of productive farm land taken out of production daily over the
last five years. In total, the census showed 86,650 U.S. farms went out of
business in the last five years or about 47 farms a day.

Only those producers actually on some kind of agriculture mailing list
actually receive a census survey. And until 1990, farmers and ranchers within
a tribe weren't counted as individual agriculture producers. Each tribe was
counted as one collective farm.

"All tribal farms and ranches now need to be counted in the census, but that
hasn't happened because the state statistician's office is not conducting
direct surveys on reservations," Gomez said in an earlier media release. "The
1997 census only reported 412 Native American farms (in New Mexico), and the
2002 census reports just 18 new ones."

Instead, surveys are dropped off at tribal offices in December and it is up
to the tribe to hand them out.

Gomez notes many pueblos change governors and administrations every January,
potentially hampering an accurate count of tribal farmers.

Gomez's program works with

17 of 19 pueblos, and their database shows 3,000 farmers and ranchers. The
pueblo count isn't complete yet and the database doesn't yet include the
Navajo Nation, part of which lies in New Mexico, the Jicarilla Apache or
Mescalero Apache tribes. Gomez estimates, based on tribal records, another
3,000 producers just in Navajo country.

Rich Allen, National Agricultural Statistics Service deputy administrator in
Washington, D.C. said he will ask the state statistician for an updated count
of minority producers in the state. The committee is asking for a follow-up
survey to be completed by Dec. 2005.

Gomez said another problem is that many New Mexicans who farm, garden or
raise livestock may not realize they qualify as small scale producers under
the U.S. D.A. definition. Many have never signed up for help from soil and
water conservation districts, agriculture extension or other ag programs, he
said, so they won't receive census surveys.

The U.S.D.A. defines a farm as any place that produces $1,000 worth of a
product -- plant or livestock, including horses. "If I have two cows and they
have two calves, I'm a farmer," Gomez said.

A follow-up survey would include input from the New Mexico Department of
Agriculture, the Farm Service Agency, the Natural Resource Conservation
Service and tribes. "We want the state statistician to pull everyone together
for this so we can get the most accurate picture possible of agriculture in
New Mexico," Allen said.






  • [Livingontheland] Adviser: Undercounting farms costs N.M. millions, Tradingpost, 04/04/2004

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