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ARMS is critical to the research and analysis mission
of ERS and is a key input to developing agricultural statistics
across USDA and other government agencies. It provides
the information base for sector estimates of value added,
income for farms by type of commodity specialization,
costs of producing major crop and livestock commodities,
indices of prices paid by farmers for production inputs,
and an annual report on the status of family farms. ARMS
supports USDA estimates of household income and wealth,
and contributes to a variety of applied farm production,
management, technology adoption, resource use, and household
well-being research applications.
ARMS data on the economic activities of individual farm
households aid policy analysis on how farmers cope with
risk, adjust to policy shocks, and make decisions on labor
and technology adoption. The data also enable researchers
to carry out disaggregated analyses ranging from a group-wise
estimate of financial well-being based on farm and/or
household characteristics (e.g., the ERS farm typology)
to behavioral hypothesis testing with unit-level data.
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