(Photo by J. Schafer)
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The newly released 2012 Census of Agriculture shows the number of Kansas farms has decreased but those that remain are larger. The National Agriculture Statistics Service reported Thursday that the average number of farms in Kansas in 2012 was 61,773. That is down 6 percent from the 2007 census. Kansas had 46.1 million acres of land used for farming operations, about the same as reported five years earlier. But the average size of the farm, 747 acres, is larger since the previous census. That is up 6 percent, or about 40 acres larger than the average in 2007. The service portrays the average Kansas farmer as 58 years old. The number of farmers under age 34 was 4,327, nearly unchanged from the last count.