Fence Lizards, Flying Squirrels, Annual Crops, and Agriculture Data for Conservation in Missouri

Producing sustained annual crops. We have a new "crop" of fence lizards on our stone wall near the garage. And although I have not seen them yet this year, I'm sure we have another "crop" of flying squirrels that are gliding about in the trees near the house. For most of the late summer, I've been watching the growth of two young deer as I see them near the garden or along the driveway.

These are just some of the "annual crops" produced near my home. The fields of corn I pass by on the way home are what many people commonly think of as an annual crop. Wildlife and many other natural resources can be sustainably produced each year and we can think of that production as an annual crop.

Agriculture data and economic information for Missouri. There is a tremendous amount of agricultural data about annual crops and farm production in Missouri which is available from the USDA Agricultural Statistics Service. I routinely use this information to learn more about Missouri crops and the economic impacts of agriculture.

For example, this overview from 2006 shows that there are 105,000 farms in Missouri and the average farm size is 287 acres. Overall in 2006, there were 30.1 million acres in farms in Missouri, which is just over two-thirds of all the acres in Missouri. In the current estimates pages, the overall cash receipts for crop production in 2006 are listed as over $2.5 billion dollars and for livestock production as over $2.8 billion dollars. Agriculture is an important part of the Missouri economy and farmers and landowners are important partners with the Department of Conservation to manage lands for conservation benefits.

Fish, forest, and wildlife results equal agriculture receipts. I can use information from the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation to learn about the economic impacts of fish, forests, and wildlife in Missouri.

The preliminary numbers from the 2006 National Survey show that anglers, hunters, and wildlife viewers spent, in one year, over $3 billion dollars on wildlife-related recreation. These numbers do not include the contributions from forest and wood products that are produced each year. And the dollar amounts do not count the overall natural resource benefits produced in other sustainable "annual crops" like fence lizards, flying squirrels, deer, turkeys, hummingbirds, prairie chickens, fish, and a wide variety of other plants, animals, and habitats on the land and in the waters of the state.

Conservation benefits are important in Missouri. In my thinking, recreation spending, wood products, and fish, forest, and wildlife production are pretty awesome "annual crops" and are obviously on par with the dollar amounts from livestock and agriculture crop production. Conservation results and activities are an important part of the Missouri economy.

Learn more about conservation in Missouri. You can learn more about conservation activities in Missouri on the Department's Web pages, both what you can do to enjoy the outdoors and what the staff of the Missouri Department of Conservation are doing to manage fish, forest, and wildlife resources in Missouri.

Or you can read about interesting aspects of conservation on the Department's blog, Fresh Afield or in the monthly magazine, free to Missouri residents that request it, the Missouri Conservationist.