Based on a survey of organic certifying agents, USDA says there are 14,861 organic farms covering 5.3 million acres, a much larger tally than it reported in September when it relied on voluntary responses by producers to its questionnaire. In the September report, USDA cited 12,818 organic farms on 4.36 million acres.
In either case, organic agriculture is a small but burgeoning part of the farm sector. Overall, there are 2.07 million farms on 912 million acres. USDA defines a farm as a place with sufficient crops and livestock to generate at least $1,000 a year in sales.
Nearly 5 percent of all food sold in the nation was organic in 2015, says the Organic Trade Association, some $39.7 billion worth and up 11 percent from the preceding year.
USDA cautioned the two organic survey reports are not comparable because of the different ways the data were gathered and then adjusted to account for non-response, misclassification and coverage.
The new report, which covers 2015 and 2014, says the number of organic farms rose by 13 percent from 13,174 in 2014 and area increased by 1.25 million acres, or 31 percent, in one year. Some 2.27 million organic acres in 2015 were listed in crops and 2.16 million acres were pasture and rangeland. California had the largest number of farms, 2,500, followed by Wisconsin with 1,684, New York state with 845, Iowa with 840 and Pennsylvania with 836.
The survey of certifying agents said there were 2,001 organic farms with livestock, including 20.8 million chickens, 968,402 turkeys and 334,514 head of cattle.