LanD use practices in sedgwick county

Thank you to everyone who joined the Sedgwick County Conservation District and the Friends University Conservation Science Program for our viewing of the documentary Living Soil last night. Below are a couple of screenshots from the end of the film. In the discussion afterwards, there were questions asked about the prevalence of cover crops in Kansas or, more specifically, Sedgwick County.

I sought answers in the recent report from the National Agricultural Statistics Service. It contains 2017 data broken down by county. 
I found that in 2017 there were 1360 farms in Sedgwick County:

• 135 ranging from 1 to 9 acres,
• 419 ranging from 10 to 49 acres, 
• 387 from 50 to 179 acres,
• 153 from 180 to 499 acres,
• 111 from 500 to 999 acres, and
• 155 of 1000 acres or more.

​The average farm size is listed as 365 acres while the median size is 79 acres.
The total amount of harvested cropland was 378,142 acres in this county in 2017 including: 

• 112,511 acres managed through no-till and
• 10,092 acres planted to cover crop (excluding Conservation Reserve Program - CRP).

That is close to 30% of acres under no-till practices, and 3% cover-cropped.