Economic, Energy, Land Use Practices, 
Selected Practices, Organic, Operator 
Characteristics, and Type of 
Organization/Legal Status Changes 
Deleted items include: none 
Added items include: 
• Renewable energy producing systems, including 
solar panels, wind turbines, methane digesters, 
geoexchange systems, small hydro systems, 
biodiesel, and ethanol 
• Wind rights leased to others 
• Acres drained by tile 
• Acres artificially drained by ditches 
• Acres under a conservation easement 
• Cropland acres on which no -till practices were 
used 
• Cropland acres on which conservation tillage, 
excluding no-till, practices were used 
• Cropland acres on which conventional tillage 
practices were used 
• Cropland acres planted to cover crop (excluding 
CRP) 
• Type of internet service, including dial up, DSL, 
Cable modem, fiber optic, mobile broadband plan 
for computer or cell phone, satellite services. 
Broadband over Power Lines (BPL), or other 
DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS 
The following definitions and explanations provide a 
detailed description of specific terms and phrases 
used in this publication. Items in the publication 
tables which carry the note “See text” are also 
explained. 
Acres and quantity harvested. Crops were reported 
in whole acres, except for the following crops that 
were reported in tenths of acres: vegetables including 
potatoes and sweet potatoes, and fruit and nut crops 
including land in orchards, and berries. Totals for 
crops reported in tenths of acres were rounded to 
whole acres at the aggregate level during the 
tabulation process. 
If two or more crops were harvested from the same 
land during the year (double cropping), the acres 
were counted for each crop. Therefore, the total 
2012 Census of Agriculture 
USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service 
acres of all crops harvested could exceed the acres of 
cropland harvested. An exception to this procedure 
was hay. 
When more than one cutting of hay was taken from 
the same acres, the acres were counted only once. If 
there were multiple cuttings of one type of hay 
production, e.g. two cuttings of alfalfa for dry hay, 
acreage was reported once but the quantity harvested 
includes all cuttings. Acreage cut and tons harvested 
for both dry hay and haylage, silage, or greenchop 
was reported for each crop. For interplanted crops or 
“skip-row” crops, acres were reported according to 
the portion of the field occupied, whether by a crop 
or whether it was idle land. If a crop was interplanted 
in an orchard or vineyard and harvested, then the 
entire orchard or vineyard acreage was reported 
under the appropriate fruit crop and the interplanted 
estimated crop acreage was reported under the 
appropriate crop. 
If a crop was planted but not harvested, the acres 
were not reported as harvested. These acres were 
reported in the “land” section on the report form 
under the appropriate cropland items - cropland on 
which all crops failed or were abandoned, cropland 
in cultivated summer fallow, cropland idle or used 
for cover crops or soil-improvement but not 
harvested and not pastured or grazed, or other 
pasture and grazing land that could have been used 
for crops without additional improvements. This 
does not include fruit and nut orchards, vineyards, 
berries, acres in production for cut Christmas trees, 
and acres in production for short rotation woody 
crops that were not harvested. Acreage in these 
commodities were included in cropland harvested 
whether the crop was harvested or not. Abandoned 
orchards were reported as cropland idle, not as 
harvested cropland, and the individual abandoned 
orchard crop acres were not reported. 
Crops that were only hogged or grazed were reported 
as “Other pasture and grazing land that could have 
been used for crops without additional 
improvements.” Crop residue left in fields after the 
2012 harvest and later hogged or grazed was 
reported as cropland harvested and not as other 
pasture and grazing land that could have been used 
for crops. Quantity harvested was not obtained for 
APPENDIX A- 3 
