Quickly accessible, concise information about each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia!
50 State Agricultural Rankings
Kentucky
Agriculture
The tables below offer information about Kentucky agriculture from the general agricultural groups to the more specific commodities or products. The ranking assigned to a given commodity is based on the commodity's cash receipts; how much money it made.
Commodity groups cash receipts - 2004
As you can see from the table below, Kentucky ranks 23rd among the states for total agricultural production with 2/3 of its total coming from livestock products.
| Commodity groups cash receipts - 2004 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product Group | Value ($1,000) | % State total | State rank |
| All commodities | 4,126,185 | 100.0% | 23 |
| Livestock and products | 2,738,502 | 66.4% | 16 |
| Crops | 1,387,683 | 33.6% | 24 |
| Source: USDA:Economic Research Service | |||
Kentucky's top five commodities by cash receipts - 2004
This table lists Kentucky's top commodities in each of Kentucky's two agriculutural groups, livestock and crops.
| Kentucky's top five commodities by cash receipts - 2004 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Livestock products | % State total | Crop products | % State total |
| Horses/mules | 23.0% | Tobacco | 10.0% |
| Broilers (9-12 week old chickens) | 16.7% | Soybeans | 9.0% |
| Cattle and calves | 15.0% | Corn for grain | 8.3% |
| Dairy products | 5.7% | Greenhouse/nursery | 1.9% |
| Hogs | 2.5% | Hay | 1.7% |
| Source: USDA:Economic Research Service | |||
Kentucky's most important livestock products are horses and mules followed by broilers, cattle and calves, dairy products, and hogs. The state's top crops are tobacco and soybeans. Other valuable crops are grain corn, greenhouse and nursery products, and hay.
Over 4/5 (80.1%) of the horses and mules produced in the United States are produced in Kentucky.
Leading commodities for cash receipts - 2004
This table offers a more complete view of the most important agricultural products of Kentucky.
| Leading commodities for cash receipts - 2004 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product | Value ($1,000) | % State Value | |
| 1. Horses/mules | 950,000 | 23.0% | |
| 2. Broilers (9-12 week old chickens) | 690,932 | 16.7% | |
| 3. Cattle and calves | 620,650 | 15.0% | |
| 4. Tobacco | 421,694 | 10.2% | |
| 5. Soybeans | 372,216 | 9.0% | |
| 6. Corn for grain | 340,466 | 8.3% | |
| 7. Dairy products | 236,640 | 5.7% | |
| 8. Hogs | 104,513 | 2.5% | |
| 9. Chicken eggs | 88,067 | 2.1% | |
| 10. Greenhouse/nursery | 77,603 | 1.9% | |
| 11. Hay | 71,436 | 1.7% | |
| 12. Wheat | 69,715 | 1.7% | |
| 13. Sorghum grain | 3,553 | 0.1% | |
| 14. Aquaculture | 2,551 | 0.1% | |
| 15. Apples | 2,480 | 0.1% | |
| 16. Farm chickens | 1,725 | Less than 0.1% | |
| 17. Sheep and lambs | 1,609 | Less than 0.1% | |
| 18. Barley | 1,490 | Less than 0.1% | |
| 19. Peaches | 968 | Less than 0.1% | |
| 20. Wool | 42 | Less than 0.1% | |
| Honey * | |||
| Mushrooms * | |||
| * Commodities at the bottom of the above ranked list of commodities and having no accompanying data would have appeared within the ranked list of leading commodities, but were excluded to avoid disclosure of confidential information about individual producers. | |||
| Source: USDA:Economic Research Service | |||
The 2004 table above contains information about Kentucky agricultural production provided by the Economic Research Service at the United States Department of Agriculture.
The first column of the table lists the product (commodity).
The second column of the table lists a number representing the dollar value of the product. This number is not the dollar value of the product. This number represents the dollar value of the product in thousands of dollars. For example, the number listed for the value of horses/mules is 950,000. This number represents a dollar value of $950,000,000 (950,000 x 1,000): nine hundred and fifty million dollars.
The third column of the table lists the percent (part) of the total agricultural value produced in Kentucky. For example, horses/mules account for 23.0% of Kentucky's total agricultural production value. The dollars generated by the production of horses and mules add up to over 1/5 of Kentucky's total agricultural production.
National ranking highlights - 2004
- Ranks first in production of horses/mules (82% of U.S. production).
Kentucky farms and farmland - 2004
Because of different rounding methods (e.g., farm acres given by the National Argriculture Statistics Service), percentage of farmland per state should be considered a rough estimate.
| Kentucky farms and farmland - 2004 | Number of farms | Total farm acres | Percent of state | Average farm size (acres) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85,000 | 13,770,000 | 54% | 162 |
| Source: USDA:National Agriculture Statistics Service | |||
Home Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington, D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming
