The Contribution of Agriculture to the Wisconsin Economy

Executive Summary This study assesses the contribution of agriculture to Wisconsin's economy. Building on the analysis of Deller (2004), we use data from 2007 in this study. By using 2007 as the year of analysis, we are able to build on the current Census of Agriculture, which provides detailed data for 2007. We also explore changes in aggregate measures of agriculture from 1990 to 2007, and more detailed assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of on-farm production and food processing, employment dropped slightly (Figure 1). This is somewhat contradictory to the input-output economic impact analysis included in this study which shows on-farm employment declining from 2000 to 2007 and food processing employment increasing slightly over the same period. o Farm earnings saw little growth between 1990 and 2007, and the instability of farm earnings reflects the nature of the industry. Earnings from food processing grew annually from 1990, but the rate of growth slowed from about 2002 (Figure 2). Earnings from farm employment tend to be significantly below average Wisconsin earnings, but average per-job earnings in food processing were consistently above Wisconsin's economy-wide average earnings (Figure 3). o Comparing employment levels to the national average, Wisconsin retains a growing strength in dairy farming, cattle ranching, production of animals for fur and, increasingly, dry, condensed and evaporated dairy, breweries, frozen specialty food processing, fruit and vegetable canning and drying, as well as the broad category of dairy product processing. Traditionally strong agricultural sectors that appear to be weakening include potato production and frozen fruit and vegetable processing. o In 2007 agriculture contributed $59.16 billion to Wisconsin's industrial output (i.e. industry sales), or about 12.5% of the Wisconsin total. Dairy, including on farm-level production/sales and processing, accounted for about $26.5 billion of total industrial output. Dairy processing (such as cheese), accounted for the majority of industrial sales. This represents a 14.9% increase over the 2000 estimated impact of agriculture, which was $51.5 billion. o In 2007 agriculture contributed 353,991 jobs to the Wisconsin economy, or 10% of total employment. On-farm production contributed 132,000 jobs. Agricultural processing accounts for 251,800 jobs, horticulture contributes about 16,700 jobs, and forestry and logging 7,600 jobs. This represents a 15.7% decline from the 2000 estimated impact of agriculture on Wisconsin employment, which was 420,000 jobs. o In 2007 agriculture contributed $20.2 billion to total income, about 9.0% of Wisconsin's total income. The majority of this comes from …