They may be checking to see if the previously ag land is no longer in use or if it might have reverted back to crop land.

Be glad you don't have to fill out the actual survey - it's a PITA. The thing is twenty to thirty pages long and very detailed. I'd gotten it, but didn't have all the figures to fill it out so had set it aside. A guy came to the door and it took nearly an hour with his help to finish.

Pretty much they are concerned about how much land in the US that had been used for agricultural has been taken out of production whether for food, feed crops, crops for other uses (think cotton or corn for fuel) or for livestock.

The guy that came to my door left a number in case I had any questions - it was a cell phone, I think provided to him by USDA.

Our place is still a farm but rather than raising corn and hogs like the people who owned it before we raise horses and trees.

I was extra-suspicious because we had gotten one of the fake IRS calls a couple months ago. But I went online and spoke to someone at a phone number I found there, and she explained how the system in my state is messed up. So I did fill out the .gov form (with some no's and zeros.)

But better safe than sorry!

we have a complex ownership/lease/management situation and trying to figure out what numbers are for who and where is truly a PITA!

I was recently appointed to the Agricultural commission in my village in CT because I'm also a Conservation Commissioner and the policy/regulation wonk there. If you think it's hard to fill out for just your farm...imagine having to do it for 2 governments (CT DEEP and USDA) for an entire town's-worth of interlocking lease/grazing-rights/cooperative agreements.

No farm in town is not-intersectional to at-least 2 others because the largest farm in town is probably smaller than your smallest grazing pasture. The cow farmer grazes his cows in the cider orchard and the vineyard who both also have distillation permits for production of spirits so any land used to produce agriculture to be used in the production of alcohol is excluded unless that alcohol is industrial grain-alcohol sold to the sugar-shack (Maple syrup producer) or the two apiaries for use as cleaning solvent. That's not even touching on the 12 small "citizen-farmers" who all buy manure, must and organic detritus from all of the above for use as fertilizer; grow produce for sale, raise livestock for non-sale as well as sale (get classified differently), egg production, some of which run dairies, fewer of which are used to produce dairy-product (cheese, sour cream, creme fraiche, ice cream, etc.)...and most of whom sharecrop as well. Now we have a running fight over whether a stable is a farm because they produce no ag product for which the smartass who owns the stable said he was perfectly willing to slaughter horses when they became old and lame to sell horsemeat if it would get the town to relent that he was actually "horse-farming." (He has no intention of being a horse abattoir, he just wanted to rise the assholes in town making his life hard by offering to give them exactly what they asked for, but not what they actually want.)

If I summed each of their land-use data, it would be larger than the village. Only 42% of the village land is actually ag land.

I sometimes want to write on every piece of paper that crosses my desk in red crayon: "All the farmers are dead. Long live the farmers!" and see how soon until they send someone to check on my mental well-being.

I'll trade. I'll fill out your survey if you come serve AG Comm. for me.

At least sometimes I "produce" a product. We still have four broodmares and sometimes still breed if we think we can sell the babies. And even some of them go for legitimate ag use since they have become working cow horses.

The guy that came here said it's all OK - if we all sent the things in on our own, he wouldn't have a job!

He was nice, though and very helpful and we had a fun time talking while filling out the form.