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by King Whetstone
Regional Director, USDA-NASS, Northeastern Regional Field Office
Editor's Note: This is a monthly column from the Northeastern Regional Field Office of USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS-NERFO). The website is www.nass.usda.gov; for the reports mentioned below, click on the "Publications" tab.
Northeast
hay stocks
Pennsylvania hay stocks on farms totaled 390 thousand tons, up 15% from the previous May. Disappearance from December 1, 2022 - May 1, 2023 totaled 1.24 million tons, compared with 1.10 million tons for the same period a year earlier.
U.S. and Northeast farm labor
There were 651,000 workers hired directly by farm operators on the Nation's farms and ranches during the week of April 9-15, 2023, up 3% from the April 2022 reference week. Workers hired directly by farm operators numbered 511,000 during the week of January 8-14, 2023, up 1% from the January 2022 reference week.
Farm operators paid their hired workers an average wage of $18.08 per hour during the April 2023 reference week, up 5% from the April 2022 reference week. Field workers received an average of $17.26 per hour, up 5%. Livestock workers earned $16.48 per hour, up 4%.