Top 5 Types of Massachusetts Farms

Which are the leading farm types in Massachusetts? Well, it depends on how you want to measure them. Farms are an important part of our rural character; thus, counting farms is an important consideration. If we simply count numbers of farms by major commodity type, then the Top Five farm types in Massachusetts are: hay ; horse and other equine ; greenhouse, nursery and floriculture ; fruit and tree nut ; and vegetable and melons.

Agriculture contributes to Massachusetts's rural character by maintaining open space. If we rank our farms by the number of acres (link back to graph of acreage by farm type ) they operate, the Top Five picture changes. Hay farms remain at the top. These farms are joined by other farm types that require large amounts of land for production, "dairy," "fruit and tree nut," "other crops," and "beef cattle" farms. These farm types all require large amounts of farmland for crop production or grazing.

There are many other ways to present a Top Five for Massachusetts agriculture, but the most common is to rank farm types by the value of their products (Market Value by Farm Type). When we use the value of products to rank our Massachusetts farms, the Top Five includes: "greenhouse, nursery and floriculture," "diary," "fruit and tree nut," "vegetable and melon," and "other animal production." "Greenhouse, nursery and floriculture" farms, with over 40 percent of Massachusetts market value of agricultural output, replaced "fruit and tree nut" farms at the top. "Fruit and tree nut" farms were the top farm type in terms of market value of product in 1997.

The Economic Research Service (ERS) of the USDA has made additional adjustments to these data to estimate the value of receipts for commodities. Value of receipts might differ from market value of product if output is not sold due to, i.e., home consumption, use as agricultural input, and shrinkage. ERS also further delineated some of these categories to estimate receipts for individual commodities. Cranberries and apples, from the "fruit and tree nut" category and sweet corn from the "vegetable and melon" category are some of our leading commodities when commodity groups are further separated. With these adjustments, cranberries are shown as a separate commodity and actually move slightly ahead of dairy to the second spot on our "top 5" list.