While growth has been tremendous in the county over the passed few decades, Rutherford County farmers still hold on to their roots and produce food for the nation.

With local farmer Donald Blankenship’s recent award of Tennessee’s Young Farmer of the Year, The Post presents the Top 10 (11, because it’s a nice round number) Rutherford County and Tennessee farm facts.

All the figures and rankings come from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2002 Agricultural Census and the 2006 Tennessee Department of Agriculture’s State Farming Summary.

A new U.S. DOA Agricultural Census is scheduled for release early next year, which could shed a new light on farming in Rutherford County.

1. Rutherford County is Tennessee’s No. 1 producer of horses and ponies.

According to the 2002 U.S. Agricultural Census, 5,534 horses and ponies make their home in the county. This places the county as the No. 33 top producer in the country.

The county also placed No. 1 in horse and pony sales in the state in 2002 bringing in more than $4.1 million, ranking Rutherford County 22nd in the nation in horse and pony sales.

Only Texas and California have more horses than the state of Tennessee.

2. More goats also come from here than any other county in the state. Rutherford County had a 2002 goat population of 5,575, ranking the county 52nd nationwide in goat production.

Goats and sheep brought more than $120,000 into the county in 2002.

Tennessee ranked second in the nation in 2006 for goat production, falling behind Texas.

3. In 2006 Rutherford County ranked 11th in the state for beef cattle production and 12th overall for cattle and calves.

In 2002 county farmers brought 39,085 cows to the market and the nation’s dinner table.

Cattle and calves are the state’s largest source of farm income making up 19 percent of total farm revenue or more than $400 million annually.

4. To feed all this livestock, farmers have to grow hay and Rutherford County is no different.

In 2006 the county was the seventh largest producer of both alfalfa and hay in the state.

The county boasted more than 42,000 acres of hay and silage in 2002, which sold for more than $1.2 million.

5. Surprisingly, the county has the ninth highest population of egg-laying hens 20 weeks and older in the state with more than 40,000 calling the county home.

More than 100,000 chickens called Rutherford home in 2002 including egg-layers and broilers.

Poultry is the second largest source of farm income in the state, bringing in more than $300 million annually.

6. In 2002 the county ranked 13th in the state for Christmas tree production.

7. In 2002, Rutherford County had 2,088 farms covering 210,754 acres.

This was an increase an increase of 4 percent in the number of farms but a decrease amount of acres farmed.

The county had 210,754 acres in farms that year, a decrease of 4 percent from 1997.

Tennessee currently has more than 91,000 farms covering nearly half of the state’s area, or 11.8 million acres.

8. Rutherford County has 25 farms listed on Tennessee’s Century Farm with three listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The oldest farm in the county is the Gooch Farm, founded in 1805. The farm is located where Rutherford, Williamson and Davidson counties meet. In fact, the three county lines meet in the center of the Gooch Cemetery where the founder and other family members are buried. 

9. While Tennessee’s top crops are cotton, tobacco and soybeans, that’s not true for Rutherford County.

In 2002, the county ranked 19th in the state for cotton, 61st for tobacco and 32nd for soybeans.

10. Tennessee farmers are national leaders in green approaches with more than two-thirds of farmers using soil conservation methods on the state’s 3 million acres of farmland.

Local farmers have pioneered the use of no-till farming, where the ground isn’t plowed before planting seed.

Traditional plowing strips the soil of nutrients and causes erosion and water pollution from runoff. By using no-till farming, Tennessee farms have lessened their impact on the surrounding environment.

11. Thanks to advances in technology, the amount of food U.S. farmers produce has quintupled in the last 40 years.

In the 1960s, one farmer supplied 25.8 people with food in the U.S. and overseas.

Today, one farmer can supply food for as many as 129 people, 97 at home and 32 abroad.

In the ‘40s it took one farmer nine hours to harvest 100 bushels of hay and a modern combine can do the same amount of work in less than seven minutes.

Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com.