Pasture
Pasture is land used for grazing. The Census of Agriculture's permanent pasture is grazable land that does not qualify as woodland pasture or cropland pasture, ranging from high-quality ground that could not be cropped without improvements to land barely able to be grazed. The word describes use, not zoning, fencing or taxes.
From high-quality pasture to land barely able to be grazed
USDA's Census of Agriculture treats permanent pasture as one land use with a wide range inside it.
Permanent pasture and rangeland, other than cropland and woodland pastured. This land use category encompasses grazable land that does not qualify as woodland pasture or cropland pasture.
USDA, 2022 Census of Agriculture definitions (Appendix B)
In some areas, it can be a high quality pasture that could not be cropped without improvements. In other areas, it is barely able to be grazed and is only marginally better than wasteland.
USDA, 2022 Census of Agriculture definitions (Appendix B)
The census keeps a separate line for cropland used only for pasture or grazing, and points from it to pasture and grazing land that could have been used for crops without additional improvements. So a grazed field can land on either side of the census line, depending on whether it could be cropped without improvements. Where pasture ends and tillable ground begins matters in a sale too, and what that split does to a farm's asking price is taken up in why the tillable and pasture split matters.
Where the state's land use standards reach a pasture
Being pasture is not the same as qualifying for land use assessment. Virginia's standards for agricultural land include lines that speak to grazing ground directly.
Livestock land is measured against a minimum number of animal unit-months of commercial livestock or poultry per five acres of open land in the previous year. That is one standard among several, and the rest of the program, from minimum acreage to what happens when the use changes, is set out under land use taxation. Whether a particular pasture carried that many animal unit-months is for the Commissioner of the Revenue to decide, not something the word pasture settles.
The standards also have the applicant certify that the land is used in a planned program of practices, and one of the listed practices
Is intended to control brush, woody growth, and noxious weeds on row crops, hay, and pasture by the use of herbicides, biological controls, cultivation, mowing, or other normal cultural practices.
2VAC5-20-30 A, VDACS land use standards
That is a practice the applicant certifies, not the whole test. Nothing in these lines turns on fencing, and whether fence changes what a buyer pays is taken up in does fencing help sell land.
A pasture figure describes use, not what else the ground could carry
A pasture acreage figure describes how ground was being used. It does not say what else a tract could carry.
Whether grazing a few animals makes a place a farm for tax or any other purpose is taken up in what counts as a hobby farm. Planted Christmas trees sit in yet another census category, one of the details in how a Christmas tree farm is valued.
How much of the farm is in pasture?
Send the county, the acreage and how the pasture is grazed now, and Lowell will talk through how that ground fits the rest of the farm. No cost, no obligation.
Got it. Thank you.
We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions about this term
Is woodland that livestock graze counted as pasture?
Not in the Census of Agriculture. Its woodland category includes natural or planted woodlots or timber tracts, cutover land with young growth, and woodland pastured, and permanent pasture is defined as grazable land that does not qualify as woodland pasture or cropland pasture. Grazed woods stay woodland in the census count. Whether grazed woods meet a land use standard is the local assessing officer's decision.
Is a county's pastureland acreage in the Census of Agriculture the same figure used for land use taxation?
No. The census counts pastureland in acres as one use of a county's land in farms; it is a statistical count, not a tax record. Land use assessment is a separate local program with state standards, such as the animal-unit minimum for livestock land, and whether a given pasture qualifies is the local assessing officer's finding, which in Carroll County means the Commissioner of the Revenue.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- 2022 Census of Agriculture, Appendix B: land use definitions USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service
- 2VAC5-20-30: land use standards for agricultural and horticultural real estate Virginia Administrative Code