palms, ornamental grasses, and bare root herbaceous 
perennials. 
Nuts, all. Data include all nut trees. 
Occupation. See Primary occupation of operator 
and/or Farms by age and primary occupation of 
operator. 
Operations legal status for tax purposes. See 
Farms by legal status. 
Operator. The term operator designates a person 
who operates a farm, either doing the work or 
making day-to-day decisions about such things as 
planting, harvesting, feeding, and marketing. The 
operator may be the owner, a member of the owner’s 
household, a hired manager, a tenant, a renter, or a 
sharecropper. If a person rents land to others or has 
land worked on shares by others, he/she is 
considered the operator only of the land which is 
retained for his/her own operation. The census 
collected information on the total number of 
operators, the total number of women operators, and 
demographic information for up to three operators 
per farm. 
Operator characteristics. Operators (up to three 
operators per farm) were asked to report primary 
occupation, sex, age, race, place of residence, if 
retired, number of days worked off farm, year in 
which his/her operation of the farm began, year 
began operating any farm, hired manager, number of 
persons living in the operators’ households, internet 
access and type of services, and Spanish, Hispanic, 
or Latino origin. Information on the total number of 
operators and total number of women operators was 
collected from each operation. The principal 
operator was asked to report the percentage of total 
household income that came from the farm 
operation. In addition, operators two and three were 
asked if they were the spouse of the principal 
operator. 
Operators, number. Demographic and other 
information were collected for up to three operators 
per farm - the principal operator plus up to two 
additional operators. This may be fewer than the 
total operators on some farms. Demographic data for 
up to three operators reported are presented 
separately for women, by race categories, and for 
B -16 APPENDIX B 
Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino origin. 
Operators of Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino origin. 
See Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino origin. 
Operators, total. The data represent the total 
reported number of operators for the operation. 
Operators, total women. The data represent the 
total number of women operators reported for the 
operation. 
Oranges, all. All oranges are a summation of 
Valencia oranges and Other oranges. Total acres, 
bearing age acres, and nonbearing age acres were 
collected by category. 
Oranges, other. See Other oranges. 
Organic agriculture. Respondents were instructed 
to indicate if they had organic production according 
to USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) in 
2012. Respondents reported whether their organic 
production was certified or exempt from certification 
and the sales from NOP produced commodities. 
They also reported whether they had acres 
transitioning into NOP production and the value of 
sales of USD A NOP certified or exempt organically 
produced commodities. Also see Total organic 
product sales. 
Organic value of sales. See Total organic product 
sales. 
Ornamental fish. This category includes various 
fish raised for water gardens, aquariums, etc. 
Examples include angel fish, guppies, koi, 
ornamental goldfish, and tropical fish. The value of 
sales was tabulated for each specified species. 
Other animals and other animal products sold. 
This category includes number of farms and value of 
sales for all animals and animal products not listed 
elsewhere on that specific table. 
Other aquaculture products. This category 
includes aquaculture not listed separately. Examples 
include the production of alligators, frogs, leeches, 
eels, live rock, salamanders, and turtles. 
Other cattle. Data include heifers that had not 
2012 Census of Agriculture 
USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service 
