Use of Prime Farmland, 1982

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Description

This pie map contains a pie chart for each state and the nation. The pie slices reflect the percentage of various land cover/uses on Prime Farmland. The "Other" category includes other rural land and Conservation Reserve Program land. The size of the pies is proportional to the amount of Prime Farmland in the state, scaled between Rhode Island with 71,000 acres and Texas with 36,108,400 acres.

Cautions for this Product:
The national pie is not proportional to the state pies.


Sources

Source: National Resources Inventory, 1997
Distributor: USDA-NRCS-RIAD
Reliability:
NRI sample data are generally reliable at the 95% confidence interval for state and certain broad substate area analyses. Generally, analyses that aggregate data points by smaller geographic areas and/or more specific criteria result in fewer data points for each aggregation and therefore less reliable estimates. NRI maps reflect national patterns rather than site- specific information.

Layers

Aggregate Layer: State
Other Layers Displayed:  

Definitions

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP):
A Federal program established under the Food Security Act of 1985 to assist private landowners to convert highly erodible cropland to vegetative cover for 10 years. [NMCSP]

Cropland:
A Land cover/use category that includes areas used for the production of adapted crops for harvest. Two subcategories of cropland are recognized: cultivated and noncultivated. Cultivated cropland comprises land in row crops or close-grown crops and also other cultivated cropland, for example, hayland or pastureland that is in a rotation with row or close-grown crops. Noncultivated cropland includes permanent hayland and horticultural cropland. [NRI-97]

Forest land:
A Land Cover/Use that is at least 10 percent stocked by single stemmed forest trees of any size which will be at least 4 meters (13 feet) tall at maturity. When viewed vertically, canopy cover is 25 percent or greater. Also included are areas bearing evidence of natural regeneration of tree cover (cutover forest or abandoned farmland) and not currently developed for nonforest use. For classification as forest land, an area must be at least one acre and 100 feet wide. [NRI-97]

Land cover/use:
A term that includes categories of land cover and categories of land use. Land cover is the vegetation or other kind of material that covers the land surface. Land use is the purpose of human activity on the land; it is usually but not always related to the land cover. The NRI uses the term (land cover/use) to identify the categories that account for all the surface area in the United States [BS-1982; NRI-97]

Other rural land:
A Land cover/use category that includes farmsteads and other farm structures, field windbreaks, barren land, and marshland. [Revised 1992 NRI Summary Report, omitting CRP land.]

Pastureland and Native Pasture:
A Land Cover/Use category of land managed primarily for the production of introduced or native forage plants for livestock grazing. Pastureland may consist of a single species in a pure stand, a grass mixture or a grass-legume mixture. Management usually consists of cultural treatments-fertilization, weed control, reseeding, or renovation and control of grazing. (For the NRI, includes land that has a vegetative cover of grasses, legumes, and/or forbs, regardless of whether or not it is being grazed by livestock.) [NRI-97]

Prime farmland:
Land that has the best combination of physical and chemical characteristics for producing food, feed, forage, fiber, and oilseed crops and is also available for these uses. It has the soil quality, growing season, and moisture supply needed to produce economically sustained high yields of crops when treated and managed according to acceptable farming methods, including water management. In general, prime farmlands have an adequate and dependable water supply from precipitation or irrigation, a favorable temperature and growing season, acceptable acidity or alkalinity, acceptable salt and sodium content, and few or no rocks. They are permeable to water and air. Prime farmlands are not excessively erodible or saturated with water for a long period of time, and they either do not flood frequently or are protected from flooding.[SSM, USDA Handbook No. 18, October 1993]

Rangeland:
A Land cover/use category on which the climax or potential plant cover is composed principally of native grasses, grasslike plants, forbs or shrubs suitable for grazing and browsing, and introduced forage species that are managed like rangeland. This would include areas where introduced hardy and persistent grasses, such as crested wheatgrass, are planted and such practices as deferred grazing, burning, chaining, and rotational grazing are used, with little or no chemicals or fertilizer being applied. Grasslands, savannas, many wetlands, some deserts, and tundra are considered to be rangeland. Certain communities of low forbs and shrubs, such as mesquite, chaparral, mountain shrub, and pinyon-juniper, are also included as rangeland. [NRI-97]

Product Information

Product ID: 5033
Production Date: 1/29/01
Product Type: Map

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