This data comes from various tables in the 2017 Agricultural Census. There’s a wide range of estimates and claims about the potential for agricultural sequestration.
In 2017 there were 1,200 farms in Thurston County, occupying 62,000 acres, or about 13.4% of the land. Half the farms were under 14 acres. 1,143 of them were under 179 acres. There were 38 between 180 and 499 acres; 12 between 500 and 999 acres, and 7 over 1,000 acres. (There are more small farms than there used to be; in 1974, roughly the same acreage was in farms, but there were half as many of them.) The Thurston Regional Planning Council estimates we’ve lost about 460 acres of farmland a year in Thurston County during the years between 2000 and 2014.
926 farms had sales of less than $9,999/year; 133 of them had sales between $10,000 and $24,000; 68 of them had sales between $25,000 and $100,000; there were 73 with sales above that. Average farmland was worth $11,800/acre. The average age of the principal operator was 57.6 years; 63% of them are part-time farmers, with some other principal occupation. 917 farms reported net losses, where production expenses were greater than products sold, government payments and farm-related income; 281 farms reported net gains.
Livestock and poultry accounted for 68% of the market sales; crops accounted for the other 32%. There are 18,000 head of cattle, 5,300 dairy cows and 4,900 beef cows (and 8,000 other cattle.). There are 1.44 million laying chickens on 304 farms. Under 32,000 of the chickens are on relatively small farms; the other 1.4 million are on three farms. (277 farms have fewer than 49 chickens.)
There’s 22,109 acres in cropland, of which 16,825 were actually harvested. (2,763 acres of the rest was other pasture and grazing land that could have been used for crops without additional improvements; 1,632 acres was cropland idle or used for cover crops or soil improvement, and there were 405 acres on which all crops failed, and 484 acres in summer fallow.) There’s 16,695 acres of woodland, 4,000 acres of which is pastured. There’s another 15,391 acres of permanent pasture and rangeland. 8,127 acres is buildings and facilities.
14,000 acres is used to grow hay as a crop; 450 acres grows vegetables; there are 93 acres in orchards. (I think maybe the rest of the 16,825 acres of harvested crops is nursery, greenhouse, flowers, and sod.)
Total farm sales are $176 million per year. $50 million (28.4%) in sales is poultry & eggs; $47 million (28%) is nursery, greenhouse, flowers, and sod; $39 million (22%) is aquaculture; $21 million is milk; $7.8 million is cattle & calves; $4 million is vegetables; $2.6 million is fruits, nuts & berries; and $1.9 million is hay. 32 farms reported organic sales for a total of $15.4 million (up from $2.1 million in 2012). Sales of forest products were $2.4 million.
53 farms bought cover crop seed; $3.6 million went to pay for lime and fertilizer; $702,000 went for chemicals.
Six of the 1,200 farms in Thurston County reported receiving payments from the Conservation Reserve, Wetlands Reserve, Farmable Wetlands, or Conservation Reserve Enhancement Programs. Average payment was $3,576. There were 23 farms with land in other conservation easements, like those with land trusts, for a total of 1,900 acres (down from 4,600 in 2012). 31 farms reported land under no-till or minimal tillage cultivation, for a total of 206 acres, and 29 reported having another 403 acres under somewhat reduced tillage. 68 farms had land in cover crops, for a total of 416 acres. 64 farms reported that they practiced alley cropping, silvopasture, forest farming, or had riparian forest buffers or windbreaks (up from 7 in 2012, but those data didn’t count forest farming, riparian buffers, or windbreaks.); 245 farms reported practicing rotational or management-intensive grazing (down from 288 in 2012).