United States Department of Agriculture

Hello! I am Esmerelda Dickson, NASS State Statistician for Mississippi. A native of Monroe, Louisiana, I became interested in agriculture the summer after graduating from high school. That year, I participated in a summer program known as the BAYOU, the Beginning Agricultural Youth Opportunities Unlimited program, at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. While attending the program, I was exposed to various career opportunities within the agriculture field and decided to major in agriculture in college. I graduated from Southern University in 1994 with a Bachelor's of Science in agricultural economics. I then entered graduate school at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama, and received a Master's of Science in agricultural economics.

I have nearly 14 years of experience with the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). I began my NASS career in 2003 in the Michigan field office. After almost three years there, I transferred to the Texas field office and was primarily responsible for cotton, rice, and peanut estimates. After two years in Texas, I was transferred to NASS headquarters in Washington, D.C. During my time in the nation's capital, I worked on the Field Crops Agricultural Chemical Use Surveys as a member of the Survey Administration Branch. For the past four years, I have enjoyed my position in Mississippi as the state statistician. This position gives me the opportunity to work with stakeholders and the many knowledgeable and enthusiastic commodity and agricultural leaders in the state.