In USDA Census of Agriculture tables, "(D)" in place of a number means the figure was withheld to avoid disclosing data for individual farms. If a county has only one or two large hog operations, for example, publishing the county's hog inventory would effectively publish theirs, so NASS suppresses it. "(Z)" means the value is less than half of the unit shown, a real but tiny amount. Neither code means zero, and neither should be read as missing by mistake.
How often county figures are withheld
Withholding is common at county level and depends on the item. The table counts, for each crop and animal on this site, the counties with a published figure and the counties showing (D) in the 2022 census. Counties with no reported acres or animals at all appear in neither column.
| Crop or animal | Published | Withheld (D) | Share withheld |
|---|---|---|---|
| Almonds | 49 | 152 | 76% |
| Sunflower | 223 | 354 | 61% |
| Pecans | 530 | 764 | 59% |
| Dry edible beans | 189 | 187 | 50% |
| Grain sorghum | 522 | 460 | 47% |
| Barley | 489 | 423 | 46% |
| Grapes | 1,112 | 873 | 44% |
| Potatoes | 1,132 | 881 | 44% |
| Citrus | 176 | 130 | 42% |
| Canola | 119 | 86 | 42% |
| Oats | 921 | 539 | 37% |
| Peanuts | 199 | 113 | 36% |
| Milk cows | 1,510 | 841 | 36% |
| Tobacco | 175 | 92 | 34% |
| Apples | 1,389 | 719 | 34% |
| Sugar beets | 81 | 39 | 32% |
| Broilers sold | 1,599 | 716 | 31% |
| Beef cows | 2,156 | 862 | 29% |
| Turkeys | 1,735 | 679 | 28% |
| Berries | 1,738 | 627 | 27% |
| Rice | 101 | 36 | 26% |
| Corn for silage | 1,503 | 525 | 26% |
| Cotton | 480 | 164 | 25% |
| Sugarcane | 39 | 11 | 22% |
| Hogs and pigs | 2,364 | 506 | 18% |
| Wheat | 1,927 | 411 | 18% |
| Vegetables | 2,330 | 465 | 17% |
| Orchard land | 2,282 | 397 | 15% |
| Soybeans | 1,873 | 304 | 14% |
| Corn for grain | 2,312 | 339 | 13% |
| Laying hens | 2,667 | 341 | 11% |
| Sheep and lambs | 2,616 | 269 | 9% |
| Goats | 2,795 | 152 | 5% |
| Cattle and calves | 2,986 | 36 | 1% |
| Hay and haylage | 2,980 | 34 | 1% |
| Horses and ponies | 2,993 | 30 | 1% |
Almonds has the highest share of withheld county figures, 76%, and horses and ponies the lowest. Items produced by only a few operations in a county are withheld far more often than crops or animals found on many farms, such as hay, cattle and horses.
Withheld numbers still count in the totals
A county's suppressed value is still included in the state and national totals. That is why the counties in any ranking do not add up to the national figure. For hogs and pigs, the 2,364 counties with a published 2022 inventory hold 65,516,373 animals between them; the national total is 73,817,751, so 8,301,378 head sit in the 506 withheld counties and in places published only at state level.
What (Z) looks like in practice
(Z) is much rarer than (D). Across the county figures used on this site it appears 205 times, mostly for small acreages of potatoes, grapes and apples. Farm Census treats a (Z) like a withheld number: it is not shown as zero and not ranked.
How Farm Census handles the gaps
- A withheld figure is never estimated, interpolated or replaced with a state average.
- County rankings include only counties with a published figure, and every rank on the site says so: "fourth among counties with published figures" means exactly that.
- On county pages, withheld crops, animals and sales groups are named in one line under the relevant table, so a reader knows the item exists there.
- In the sales quilt, the part of a county's total that belongs to withheld groups is drawn as a single grey patch labelled "Withheld groups", because the total itself is published.
- A county whose core figures (number of farms, land in farms, total sales and similar) are withheld gets no profile. That applies to 50 of the 3,079 county-level areas in the 2022 file.
An example: a county with many gaps
Among the counties profiled on this site, Kit Carson County, CO has the most withheld items: 18 of the measures used here show (D) for it. Its profile still opens with the facts that are published, names the withheld crops and animals in a single line, and draws the withheld share of its sales as one grey patch. Nothing on the page is a guess.
Which states have the most gaps
Counting every county entry for the 36 crops and animals on this site, either published or withheld, Montana has the highest share withheld at 30%, followed by Arizona (29%) and New Mexico (29%). The lowest shares belong to Wisconsin (11%) and Pennsylvania (12%).
Why totals can still be published
Suppression works at the level where disclosure would happen. A county figure may be withheld while the state figure is published, because at state level the same farm's data is mixed with that of many others. This is why the state and commodity pages on this site can show complete state totals, and why a county with a withheld figure still contributes to the national number that a commodity page reports.
Other codes you may meet
USDA tables also use "(NA)" for not available and "(X)" for not applicable. Neither occurs in the county figures used on this site.
Reading a ranking with gaps
A withheld county can, in principle, hold more of an item than a county ranked above it. It is a limitation worth keeping in mind for every rank below the very top. The top-counties explorer therefore prints the number of withheld counties above every ranking, nationally or for the chosen state. How to read the data covers the other rules behind each rank.
Sources
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2022 Census of Agriculture and 2017 Census of Agriculture, county, state and national data (bulk files at www.nass.usda.gov/datasets/). Tables and charts computed by Farm Census.