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The annual Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) is USDA's primary
source of information on the financial condition, production practices, resource
use, and economic well-being of America's farm households. ARMS data are
essential to USDA, congressional, administration, and industry decision makers
when weighing alternative policies and programs that touch the farm sector
or affect farm families.
Sponsored jointly by ERS and the National Agricultural Statistics Service
(NASS), ARMS is the only national survey that provides observations of field-level
farm practices, the economics of the farm businesses operating the field (or
dairy herd, green house, nursery, poultry house, etc.), and the characteristics
of the American farm household (age, education, occupation, farm and off-farm
work, types of employment, family living expenses, etc.)—all collected
in a representative sample. In short, ARMS is the mirror in which American
farming views itself.
ARMS data underpin USDA's annual estimates of net farm income, subsequently
provided to the Bureau of Economic Analysis for development of annual estimates
of gross domestic product and personal income. The ARMS survey fulfills a congressional
mandate that USDA provide annual cost-of-production estimates for commodities
covered under farm-support legislation. ARMS also provides data regarding chemical
use on field crops required under environmental and food safety legislation.
A flexible data collection tool with several phases, versions, and uses, ARMS
is used to:
- Gather information about the relationships among agricultural production,
resources, and the environment
- Determine the costs to produce various crop and livestock commodities,
and the relative importance of various production expense items
- Help determine farmers'/ranchers' net farm income and provide
data on the financial situation of farm/ranch businesses, including debt
levels
- Help determine the characteristics and financial situations of farm/ranch
operators and their households, including information on management strategies
and off-farm income
See below for more background on How ARMS Is Used.
Want More Details?
See ARMS Documentation for more about how the survey is conducted (survey design,
process and procedures, including statistical methods for estimation), ARMS
topics/research areas, and the survey instruments/questionnaires administered
for each crop, year, phase, and version.
How ARMS Is Used
ARMS data are used in USDA and other government agencies in developing agricultural
statistics.
Mandated Uses
ARMS data enable ERS to publish annual estimates
of average income for U.S. farm operator households. Annual cost-of-production
estimates for over 15
agricultural commodities are also produced from ARMS data and are used in
analyzing farm commodity prices. In preparing the Annual Report on Family
Farms, required by the Food and Agriculture Act of 1977, ERS draws on ARMS
data for information on a host of relationships, including:
- Farm participation in agricultural programs, and the distribution
of farm program payments
- Structure and organization of farms, including family and non-family ownership
- Use of new production technologies and other management practices
- Farm use of credit
- Farmers' participation in off-farm employment
- Identifying the characteristics of producers purchasing crop insurance
To meet the requirements of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade
Act of 1990 and the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, NASS collects ARMS
data on field crop chemical use and publishes those data annually in Agricultural
Chemical Usage Field Crops Summary. ARMS data are also the source for NASS's
Farm Production Expenditures, an annual summary of U.S. and regional farm production
expenditures.
ARMS production input data provide annual weights for NASS's computation of
the Prices Paid by Farmers Index, used to calculate parity prices required
by the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act. Parity prices help regulate some 45
fruit, vegetable, and nut Federal marketing orders. The indices are also required
by the 1978 Public Range Improvement Act to calculate annual Federal grazing
fees on the Nation's western public lands by the Bureau of Land Management
and the Forest Service. Milk marketing boards also depend on the price indices
and expenditure data, which are also used in USDA's measures of farm productivity.
Research and Analysis
In addition to research that depends primarily on ARMS data, ARMS contributes
to other research and analysis work because it provides the basic cost-of-production
and supply response information on which other analyses depend.
The ARMS survey is the only source of national data to support research on
farmers' decisions to adopt new technologies and to relate those decisions
to the economic performance and structural attributes of farms and farm families.
Technology adoption decisions being tracked in the ARMS survey include:
- Choice of bio-engineered seed
- Selection of waste management practices by livestock producers
- Use of chemical and biological pest management alternatives
- Use of information management technologies
- Use of precision technologies in crop production
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