The number of farms and ranches in Nebraska declined less than one-percent in 2011.
 Scott Keller, an agricultural statistician with the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service field office in Lincoln, has the numbers.   (play audio   :42)
 The number of farms in Kansas remained stable last year, with 65,500 farms, unchanged from 2010.
 Nationally, there were 2.18 million farms last year, down from 2.19 million farms the previous year.  The amount of land used for crops, pasture, and grazing dwindled further to 916.9 million acres.  That is 1.85 million fewer acres than in 2010.  The average U.S. farm size last year was 420 acres.
 The national Agricultural Statistics Service released the numbers on Friday.