One of the sources of a lot of information for anyone needing to research the rural lifestyle market is the USDA Census of Agriculture. You might think it’s just about corn, soybeans, hogs and cattle but you’d be wrong.

According to Gene Danekas, Director of Ag Statistics, USDA-Missouri, (pictured on the left in his booth at the Country Living Olympics) there’s valuable information in there. He says you’ll find information right down to the county and zip code level on all sizes of operations. He says the rural lifestyle farms contribute significantly to the overall U. S. economy as well as local economies. All the data is publicly available via their website.

Gene wants rural lifestyle farm owners to know that they are a vital part of agriculture. He says they’ll be doing an update study at the end of this year when they send out 2 1/2 million questionnaires. The new report should then be available around February of 2009.

You can listen to my interview with Gene here: cla-07-danekas.mp3