Overview
Production decisions concerning how much effort and resources to
invest in crop and livestock production, and which farming
practices to follow, have consequences and create opportunities for
the farm--affecting production levels, input costs, time
constraints, and the potentially size of the operation. They
also may have implications for resource use and environmental
quality.
- ERS synthesizes information on field cropping practices used
for all major commodities. The annual Agricultural Resource
Management Survey (ARMS) provides field-level data for major crops.
ARMS Farm
Financial and Crop Production Practices data can be used
to find information at multiple levels of aggregation about:
- Previous crops planted
- Nutrient management
- Pest management
- Seed use
- Land tenure
- Conservation practices and field characteristics
- Equipment use and field operations,
- Irrigation practices.
- ARMS also collects detailed information on hog, dairy,
cow-calf, and broiler production practices. Over time, these data
provide measures of changing livestock production practices that
can be used to gain insight into some of the causes and
consequences of these changes.
- Additional data on costs of production, also collected by the
ARMS are available in the related Commodity Costs and Returns
data product.
- ERS analyzes trends in the adoption of a range of crop and
livestock production practices and their effectiveness in reducing
costs, increasing farming profitability, minimizing losses to the
environment, and conserving natural resources. For example, recent
analysis suggests that:
-
- Use of commercial fertilizers and pesticides has been steady or
declining in recent years, due to improvements in technology and
other factors.
- Approximately 35 percent of U.S. cropland (88 million acres)
planted to eight major crops had no tillage ("no till") operations
in 2009, and that percentage appears to be increasing over
time.
- Emission of nitrogen to the environment can be reduced by
matching nitrogen applications more closely with the needs of
growing crops. This can be achieved by adopting three "best
management practices" (BMPs): (1) Rate--applying an amount of
nitrogen at a rate that accounts for all other sources of nitrogen,
carryover from previous crops, irrigation water, and atmospheric
deposits; (2) Timing--applying nitrogen as close to the time
that the crop needs it as is practical (as opposed to the season
before the crop is planted), and (3) Method--injecting or
incorporating the nutrients into the soil to reduce runoff and
losses to the atmosphere. Among all U.S. field crops planted
in 2006 that received nitrogen fertilizers, 35 percent are
estimated to have met all three nutrient BMPs.
- In recent years, the number of livestock operations has fallen
and production has shifted to larger and more specialized
operations. These structural changes have been accompanied by a
movement towards cost-saving production technologies and practices.
The changes in livestock production have had important implications
for economic efficiency, final product prices, water and air
pollution, food safety, and rural development. Additional data on
costs of production, also collected by the ARMS are available in
the related Commodity Costs and Returns
data product.