Abstract
The USDA Census of Agriculture is the most comprehensive source of data on US farmers, but ongoing alterations to how demographics are measured and reported has created challenges for interpretation. For example, previous changes to the number of farmers counted on each farm led to misunderstandings and potential misrepresentation of women farmers as an extremely quickly growing demographic. An additional notable change occurred in the transition from the 2017 to the 2022 Census of Agriculture—specifically, the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service ended the ability to identify a single primary farmer in charge of each farm. Instead it was recommended that, when looking at the prevalence of women farmers, for instance, researchers use a proportional count of farmers’ demographic characteristics. This raises a significant number of possible interpretations and data analysis structures, potentially adding to the confusion of counting women and other farmers using Census of Agriculture data. This paper investigates this change, creating and describing twelve different possible methods for reporting on proportions of women farmers, including a discussion of the benefits, drawbacks, and consequences of each. Finally, we suggest a specific proportional variable to be used in research going forward.