Agribusiness in Tallahassee and Leon County

Leon County had 372 farms on 70,058 acres in 2022, and their $13,054,000 in sales ranked 54th of 67 Florida counties (USDA Census of Agriculture, Leon County).

Source for the table: USDA NASS. The profile shows more farms on less land since 2017, with the market value of products sold up 136 percent. Leon County lists its area as 702 square miles (Leon County).

The 2017 Leon County profile counted 325 farms on 91,730 acres sold $5,537,000 of products that year and posted net cash farm income of minus $1,082,000, with crops at 73 percent of sales and nursery, greenhouse, floriculture and sod at $1,390,000 (USDA NASS 2017 profile). In the 2022 profile, net cash farm income for all Leon County farms was $504,000 (USDA NASS 2022 profile).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by reading both pages of the USDA 2022 county profile for Leon County, the farm, food and forestry rows of the 2025 Leon County QCEW file with their BLS industry titles, and the UF/IFAS Leon County Extension contact block.

Mostly plants: crops made up 91 percent of Leon County farm sales in 2022, and nursery, greenhouse, floriculture and sod alone brought in $7,386,000 (USDA Census of Agriculture).

By acreage the leading crops were forage (hay and haylage) on 5,365 acres, corn for grain on 1,234 acres and dry southern peas on 180 acres, and the December 31, 2022 livestock count included 1,936 cattle and calves, 8,659 broilers, 1,886 layers, 728 goats and 463 horses and ponies (USDA NASS). Vegetable sales were withheld to avoid disclosing individual operations.

Woodland covered 44,323 of the 70,058 acres in Leon County farms in 2022, the largest of the land uses the census lists, against 12,237 acres of cropland and 9,080 acres of pastureland (USDA Census of Agriculture).

Another 4,418 acres of Leon County farmland were in other uses, and 6,320 acres were irrigated, 9 percent of land in farms (USDA NASS). Among land use practices, 9 percent of farms used no till, 6 percent planted cover crops, 3 percent used intensive till and 1 percent reduced till.

Forestry also shows up on the payroll side. The 2025 Leon County wage file lists six private forestry and logging establishments with 22 jobs and four private support-for-forestry establishments with 28 jobs (BLS QCEW), and one state government establishment in support activities for forestry with 130 jobs at an average annual pay of $63,437 (BLS QCEW). BLS defines code 1153 as support activities for forestry (BLS industry titles); the file does not name the state employer.

As a group, net cash farm income was positive in 2022: Leon County farms spent $15,073,000 on production in 2022 against $13,054,000 in product sales, and net cash farm income for all farms was $504,000, or $1,355 per farm (USDA Census of Agriculture).

The census also counts $2,503,000 in farm-related income and $20,000 in government payments for Leon County farms (USDA NASS). By value of sales, 191 farms, 51 percent, sold less than $2,500 of products, while 18 farms, 5 percent, sold $100,000 or more. By size, 161 farms had 10 to 49 acres and 15 had 1,000 acres or more.

The average farm sold $35,092 of products in 2022, up 106 percent from 2017 (USDA NASS). Seventeen percent of Leon County farms sold directly to consumers and 20 percent hired farm labor (USDA NASS).

The 2022 census counted 641 producers on Leon County farms, 261 of them women and 251 aged 65 or older (USDA Census of Agriculture).

NASS counts up to four producers per farm. Of the 641 Leon County producers, 340 were aged 35 to 64 and 50 were under 35; 268 were new and beginning farmers and 98 had military service; 585 were White, 47 Black or African American, 6 American Indian or Alaska Native and 3 Asian, and 34 were of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin (USDA NASS).

Ninety-one percent of Leon County farms were family farms, 77 percent had internet access and 1 percent farmed organically (USDA NASS).

The 2025 Leon County wage file counts 65 private crop production jobs and 188 private food manufacturing jobs, with the other farm, forestry and food codes in the table below (BLS QCEW, Leon County 2025).

Lawn and garden equipment and supplies retailers in Leon County had an employment location quotient of 1.93 in 2025, and private support activities for forestry also sit above 1, at 1.19 (BLS QCEW); BLS explains that a location quotient above 1 means an industry holds a larger share of local employment than it does nationwide (BLS).

Industry names follow the BLS industry titles (BLS). Within Leon County food manufacturing, other food manufacturing had 7 establishments and 117 jobs at $69,204 average pay, and bakeries and tortilla manufacturing had 6 establishments and 67 jobs at $25,413 average pay (BLS QCEW).

The two federal counts for Leon County do not line up, and both are stated here. The wage file lists 33 private establishments in agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting as a whole, with zeros in that row’s employment and wage columns (BLS QCEW), while the Census of Agriculture counts 372 farms (USDA NASS). The first is a BLS wage file and the second a USDA census, and neither page reconciles them.

UF/IFAS Extension Leon County, at 615 Paul Russell Road in Tallahassee, phone (850) 606-5200, open Monday to Friday 8 am to 5 pm, is the county’s extension office (UF/IFAS Extension Leon County).

The office describes itself as a federal, state and county partnership. Its North Florida Agriculture program covers fruits, vegetables and herbs, integrated pest management, and farms, markets and alternative enterprises, and its horticulture program covers lawn and garden, commercial horticulture and the Master Gardener volunteer program (UF/IFAS Extension Leon County). It also runs family and consumer sciences, including food safety and entrepreneurship, and Leon County 4-H.

The Leon County Extension site also posts dated articles and events; on October 18, 2026 its most recent posts included a gardening piece dated October 15, 2026 on growing herbs from a friend’s clippings (UF/IFAS Extension Leon County).

For a nursery or small fruit grower, the office’s commercial horticulture and North Florida Agriculture pages are the program areas named for those crops, which are among the product groups that lead Leon County sales in the farm census (USDA NASS).