Farmers in most of the United States will receive questionnaires this month as part of the twice-a-decade Census of Agriculture, but the USDA has decided to delay the survey of producers in Puerto Rico until December 2018. The delay “is necessary to allow for continued focus on hurricane recovery and to assure Puerto Rico’s agriculture can be accurately represented with quality data,” said the USDA.
Agriculture on the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria. In the aftermath of the storm, Puerto Rico’s agriculture secretary estimated that 80 percent of the island’s crops had been destroyed. The New York Times said the Category 4 hurricane had stripped leaves from plants and even bark from trees, “leaving a rich agricultural area looking like the result of a post-apocalyptic drought.”
The 2012 Ag Census listed 13,159 farms on the island, with an average size of 44.5 acres and covering a total of 584,988 acres. There were fewer farms than the 15,745 reported in the 2007 census, but they were larger and covered more land than the 557,530 acres of 2007. In dollar value, the major field crops were coffee, plantains, vegetables, and fruit. Dairy accounted for two-thirds of the value of livestock production. Puerto Rico’s farm sector produced a total of $548 million in products in 2012.
To read the 2012 Census of Agriculture report on Puerto Rico, click here.