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agriculture to the county economies combined with a projected population increase in the planning district of 29 per cent between 1980 and 2000 has created concern over loss of farmland to new development, according to the planning district’s regional farmland report. "Although many measures and techniques for discouraging the conversion of farmland to nonagricultural uses have received considerable attention and emphasis from localities, an overall change in the district’s agricultural structure appears to be continuing," the report notes.
In 1969, 56.6 per cent of the district's land area was in farm use. By 1978, this percentage dropped to 54.4 per cent. In Rappahannock, the percentage of total area devoted to farmland went from 51.4 per cent in 1969 to 45.8 per cent in 1978.
According to the U. S. Census of Agriculture, the number of farms in’ Rappahannock fell from 276 in 1969 to 266 in 1978, a decrease of 3.6 per cent. Between 1974 and 1978, however, all five of the district’s counties experienced an increase in number of farms.
(As defined by the U. S. Bureau of Census, a farm for statistical purposes is any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were sold, or normally would have been sold during the census year.)
89.8%