Poultry and eggs are moving up among the top five commodities produced by Nebraska farmers. Thanks to the recently released results from the 2022 U.S. Census of Agriculture, farmers have a more detailed picture of the ag industry in the state.

A couple of things haven’t changed since the last census was taken in 2017. Cattle and calves, along with corn and soybeans, round out the top three commodities as determined by sales, according to a release by the University of Nebraska Department of Agricultural Economics.

With 44 million acres in agricultural production, 48.8% is in permanent pasture and rangeland, compared with 48.2% in farmland. The balance is considered farmsteads, ponds, roads, livestock facilities, homes and woodlands.

Big in beef

Cattle and calves remain the top business in Nebraska, representing 41.6% of total ag sales, while corn ranks second in the Cornhusker state, raking in 31.8% of total sales. Soybeans is third at 12.1%. Hogs and pigs take the fourth-place spot with 6.7%, but poultry and eggs have moved into fifth, representing $616 million in sales, up significantly from 2017.

The actual numbers reflect these percentages if you dig into the details. The layer inventory remains very close to 2017 numbers, but the broiler industry in the state has exploded, going from 6.7 million birds reported in 2017 to almost 91 million in 2022.

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The number of acres in corn production harvested for grain has gone down over the past five years, from 9.445 million acres reported in the 2017 census to 8.648 million harvested for grain in 2022. Silage and greenchop acres went up slightly by about 34,000 acres.

Soybean acres harvested have gone down as well, from 5.664 million acres in 2017 to 5.393 million acres in 2022. All wheat for grain, including about 6,533 acres of spring wheat, was reported at 840,937 acres, compared with about 1 million acres in 2017. Over the past five years, sorghum acres for grain or silage and greenchop have increased slightly, along with sunflower acres harvested.

On the livestock side, beef cow numbers, not surprisingly, were down from 1.896 million in 2017 to 1.721 million head in 2022. Total cattle and calves sold were down by about 100,000 head.

The number of dairies has certainly declined since 2017, but the number of dairy milk cows in the state has gone down by only 11,000 head to a total of just over 57,000. The number of hogs and pigs in the state and the hogs and pigs sold have remained relatively stable since 2017.

See the accompanying table to contrast crop and livestock numbers between the Census of Agriculture in 2022 to five years ago in 2017 and 25 years ago in 1997. For more information, go to nass.usda.gov/AgCensus.