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Each year, USDA makes 10-year economic projections for the food and agriculture sector. The commodity projections are used to forecast farm program costs and to prepare the President’s budget. The projections reflect a set of assumptions regarding macroeconomic developments and farm policies, and cover major agricultural commodities, agricultural trade, and aggregate indicators of the U.S. farm sector, such as farm income and food prices. One key use of the projections is as a "baseline" from which to analyze the impacts of potential policy changes affecting U.S. agriculture.
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| Highlights |
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Steady domestic and international economic growth and gains in population strengthen demand for food and agricultural products in the baseline, providing a favorable demand setting for the U.S. agricultural sector. Additionally, strong expansion of corn-based ethanol production is projected, reflecting renewable fuel provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Although trade competition will continue to be strong, the United States will remain competitive in global agricultural markets. Thus, increases in global consumption and world trade result in gains in U.S. agricultural exports. Combined with growing domestic demand for agricultural products, overall farm cash receipts rise. Rising production expenses and lower government payments, however, offset gains in cash receipts and other sources of farm income, keeping net farm income relatively stable from 2006 to 2015, after declining from the historically high levels of 2004 and 2005.
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The Economic Research Service has the lead role in preparing USDA’s Agricultural Baseline Projections report, and the agency produces a range of other outlook products.
Interested in more? To receive e-mail notification of future Baseline releases, select Agricultural Market/Trade Projections from the topics list on the e-mail updates page. For other outlook products, choose from the reports listed under Outlook Reports and Yearbooks.
For information on previous baseline projections, see the Current and Previous Baseline Projections page in the ERS baseline briefing room.
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USDA
Agricultural Outlook Forum
