ALBANY — The number of farms in New York dropped from 35,600 in 2005 to 35,000 in 2006, according to Stephen Ropel, director of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, New York Field Office.

The amount of land in farms decreased from 7.55 to 7.50 million acres, giving an average size farm of 214 acres in New York. There has also been shifts in the number by sales class. Large farms with sales over $100,000 decreased by 700. There were 5,700 farms in that class in 2006.

The area of land operated by these farms was 3.70 million acres making the average size 649 acres per farm in 2006. Medium size farms, those having sales between $10,000 and $99,999, decreased 700 to total 10,700. The amount of land they operated was 2.05 million acres.

There were 800 more small farms with sales between $1,000 and $9,999 in 2006, at 18,600. The land in farms increased from the previous year to 1.75 million acres, giving an average farm size of 94 acres. There were 1,300 farms with sales of $500,000 or more operating 1.50 million acres in 2006.

The number of farms in the United States in 2006 is estimated at 2.09 million, 0.4 percent fewer than in 2005. Total land in farms, at 932.4 million acres, decreased 780 thousand acres, or 0.08 percent, from 2005. The average farm size was 446 acres during 2006, an increase of one acre from the previous year.

The decline in the number of farms and land in farms reflects a continuing consolidation in farming operations and diversion of agricultural land to nonagricultural uses.