Wichita ? Kansas has fewer farms this year than a year ago, joining a national decline spurred by bad weather and lower commodity prices.

In a recently released report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that Kansas lost 1,000 farms in 2001 compared with a year earlier. About 100,000 acres were taken out of farming, while the average size of a Kansas farm continued to grow as farmers sold their farmland to neighbors.

	Number of Kansas farms and average farm size per year, according to Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service: 2001: 63,000 farms, 752 acres2000: 64,000 farms, 742 acres1990: 69,000 farms, 694 acres1980: 75,000 farms, 644 acres1970: 87,000 farms, 574 acres

Despite the overall drop in Kansas farm numbers, an analysis of the USDA figures broken down by annual sales showed an increase last year in the number of mid-sized farms in Kansas.

The drop came in the number of the largest and smallest farms in the state.

Eddie Wells, statistician for Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service, said the number of mid-sized farms in Kansas increased because of larger-size farms that fell into the middle category because of lower commodity prices.

The report showed most of the state’s farming operations in the category of sales between $10,000 and $99,999. Kansas had 28,500 farms in that mid-sized group in 2001, up from 27,200 a year earlier.

That baffles industry observers, who say the reported rise in mid-size farms in Kansas bucks both national statistics and what they see in the state’s farm country: a trend toward bigger farms and more consolidations.

“I don’t know I completely trust or understand why the ag statistic looks that way. I suspect it is not a trend,” said Richard Wahl, associate economist with the Kansas Farm Management Assn.

Wahl, whose group tracks 2,200 farms and produces an annual farm income analysis for Kansas, said his group has seen more middle-sized farms leaving or seriously considering an exit from the business.

Kansas joined 23 other states that reported lower farm numbers in the USDA report.

The USDA report showed that Kansas had 63,000 farms in 2001. That compared with 64,000 farms in 2000 and 65,000 in 1999.

The USDA defines a farm for the purposes of its report as any establishment from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products are sold during the year.

Under that definition, Kansas has 21,500 farms with annual sales below $9,999, down from 23,100 farms last year in that category, according to USDA.

Kansas also has 13,000 farms reporting sales of more than $100,000. The number of the state’s biggest farms dropped from 13,700 a year earlier.

Farming acreage dropped to 47.4 million acres, compared with 47.5 million a year earlier.