Under provisions of the new farm bill, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be gathering county-level data on land rental rates.

Joe Parsons is director of the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service Nebraska Field Office. He says that until this year, the statistics service published such information only on state and national numbers.

Parsons says the Farm Service Agency and other USDA agencies will use the newly gathered county-by-county data to administer various programs.

He says questions will be included in four of the service's regular annual statewide surveys.

Producers who are not part of one of those surveys will get a special cash rents survey.