The Purdue Center for Regional Development has released a new resource as part of its Rural Indiana Stats (RIS) website that can prove valuable to economic and agricultural leaders across the state. The new addition to the RIS site captures information from the 2017, 2012, and 2007 Censuses of Agriculture, doing so through the extensive use of maps. One of the exciting aspects of the site is that users are able to explore changes that have occurred in any agriculture sector over the three census periods. Other resources of relevance to agriculture and forestry-related activities are accessible on the website as well.
The following are highlights of the agriculture/forestry-related data resources that are now available on the Rural Indiana Stats site:
Overall, the agriculture and forestry section of the Rural Indiana Stats site is intended to promote fact-based discussions by local, regional and state economic development organizations regarding areas of the state that could serve as strategic sites for the creation or recruitment of value-added activities. In particular, the mapping provides a valuable way to identify a cluster of counties with sizable acreage dedicated to specific crops, or the collection of counties with large livestock inventories. With information of this nature in hand, leaders are better able to determine the best possible sites to locate agribusiness, food processing, and/or other key enterprises in Indiana.
Check out the Rural Indiana Stats site at https://pcrd.purdue.edu/ruralindianastats/. For more information, please contact the Purdue Center for Regional Development at 765-494-7273 or pcrd-web@purdue.edu.
Please Note: The Rural Indiana Stats website was developed with financial support from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, the Economic Development Administration, the Indiana State Department of Agriculture and the Indiana Soybean Alliance.