DERRY, N.H. (AP) – New Hampshire and Massachusetts appear to be defying a national trend that has seen dropping numbers when it comes to the number and size of farms.

Federal agriculture officials say farmers in both states are turning their industry around by going after niche and local markets and branding their products more effectively.

“In general, for over the last few years, the number of farms in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts has been relatively steady,” said Gary Keough, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s office in Concord. “Amazingly, I’d say in New Hampshire the farmland has increased in the last few years.”

In 1985 New Hampshire had 3,400 farms. By 1990, that number had dropped to 2,700 and held steady until 1994.

In 1986, Massachusetts had 6,800 farms. That dropped to 6,000 in 1998.

But since the late 1990s – with fits and starts – the number of farms in Massachusetts and New Hampshire has gradually increased. Between 2000 and 2002, New Hampshire got about 100 new farms, bringing the total number from 3,300 to 3,400. The average size of those farms – about 133 acres – held steady.

Those numbers mean the future of agriculture in the Northeast may lay in small farms and local markets, Keough said.

“It looks like there is an interest in the direct market, and building those farms,” he said.

In Salem, Mike and John Peters of the Peters Farm now sell their homegrown sweet corn, eggplant, strawberries and other crops directly to shoppers at their farm stand instead of to wholesalers.

Mike Peters said he’d like to see the government do more to preserve farmland in heavily developed southern New Hampshire.

Richard Uncles, a director in the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture, said the state knows it’s important to preserve land in southern New Hampshire “by the fact that it’s so scarce.” But this year the state has only set aside about $4 million for land preservation purchases that must be divvied up between working farms, wilderness and recreation areas. The federal government provides about $3 million.