A new report claims that over 14,000 U.S. farms grew organic produce and other agricultural products in 2012.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistic Service’s 2014 Organic Survey, recently released, analyzes data from the 2012 Census of Agriculture. About 3.7 million acres of land had organic products in 2012, 687,000 of them in industry leader California.
Of the 14,093 certified or exempt U.S. farms, 2,805 were in California.
The value of U.S. organic agricultural products in 2012 was $5.5 billion, according to the report. California accounted for about $2.2 billion of that total. About 164,403 acres of organic vegetables, potatoes and melons worth $1.25 billion were harvested in 2012.
Organic grape production totaled 98,805 tons and was worth about $188 million. About 563 million pounds of organic apples, worth $250 million, were produced in 2012. In the “other fruit, nuts and berries” category, about 3,523 farms produced $579 million worth of product in 2012.