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A valuable industry
MANY STATE AND LOCAL leaders keep talking about attracting industry, attracting industry, about transforming Virginia into something it isn’t now. These people should take a hard look at the latest Census of Agriculture figures, as released by the U.S. Department of Commerce. These figures show that Virginia already has a tremendous “industry,” cme which produces products worth $941 million a year. That industry is farming.
And the industry is growing, despite inroads made into prime farmland by subdivision, shopping center and super highway development. In 1969, the last time a census of Virginia agriculture was taken, the value of farm products sold amounted to $570 million. The value of sales from crops, including nursery products, nearly doubled from $220 million in 1969 to $425 million in 1974, while sales of livestock, poultry and their products accounted for $507 million of 1974 sales, up more than $165 million from 1969.
There are statistics anti statistics, and like all figures, an inflation factor is cranked into these census findings. But they still add up to an impressive total, and Virginians should be doing everything they can to enhance farming as a viable, growing, valuable activity in their state.
Industrial development? Who needs it, in Virginia, as long as agriculture is strong and healthy—and growing.
79.9%