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Agriculture
TOP 10 Agric A ulture lt FACTS
The top four farm commodities produced in DeKalb County and Illinois are field corn, soybeans, pork, and beef.
Corn is our top crop in DeKalb County. Farmers grow about 204,000 acres of field corn. Soybeans are second, grown on 118,000 acres.
DeKalb County has rich, productive soil. About 98% of the county is considered prime farmland.
There are over 2,000 farms in DeKalb County. There are all types of farms – big and small, conventional and organic, rural and urban – to provide healthy choices of foods.
DeKalb County farms generate about $360 million in sales of agricultural products annually. DeKalb County ranks second in the state in hog production with 954,000 hogs marketed each year. Locally, 24,000 beef cattle are marketed annually.
One acre is equivalent to the size of a football field. There are more than 370,000 acres of farmland in DeKalb County.
DeKalb County has a number of specialty farms featuring a variety of ag products such as dairy, sheep, Christmas trees, apple orchards, hay and straw, greenhouses, pumpkins, and vineyards.
DeKalb County has a rich history of agriculture – home to the first county Farm Bureau in Illinois, DEKALB hybrid seed corn, and barbed wire.
88% of the land in DeKalb County is farmland.
Sources: DeKalb County Farm Bureau, USDA, Census of Ag, DeKalb County Farm Business Farm Management, DeKalb County Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service.
