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Feature
In 2015, the Organic Trade Association estimated U.S. organic retail sales at $43.3 billion, showing double-digit growth during most years since 2000, when USDA set national organic standards. Since setting national organic standards, USDA has streamlined trade arrangements with multiple foreign governments to expand international markets for U.S. organic producers.
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Feature
The 2014 Farm Act introduced several new programs for crop and livestock producers. A recent ERS study analyzed how these programs provide options for risk management under different scenarios.
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Finding
The annual total per capita supply of red meat (beef, pork, veal, and lamb), poultry (chicken and turkey), and fish/shellfish available for consumption in the United States, on a boneless, edible basis, has fallen from 200 pounds in 2007 to 181 pounds in 2014.
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Finding
An ERS researcher used the staggered adoption across New York counties of local mandatory calorie labeling laws for chain restaurant menus to estimate the impact of calorie labeling on body mass index.
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Finding
The 2014 Farm Act implemented a change in U.S. dairy policy by establishing the Margin Protection Program for Dairy Producers. Researchers evaluated the impacts of the program on dairy producers across 13 regions by comparing actual margins and risk levels during 2002-13 with what producers would have experienced had the program been in existence over the same period.
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Finding
U.S. pulses production has trended higher for several years and for the 2016/17 marketing year, lentil and chickpea production is set to reach consecutive record highs. Strong exports and rising domestic demand are driving the surge in pulse crop production.
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Statistic
ERS’s Food Access Research Atlas provides a measure of neighborhood access to healthy, affordable food for the entire Nation and allows users to map low-income and low-supermarket access census tracts in 2010 and 2015.
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Statistic
A new ERS infographic looks at energy production and consumption in U.S. agriculture.
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Statistic
A new ERS infographic looks at food insecurity in America, with a special emphasis on households who struggle with very low food security—the severe range of food insecurity—and the conditions they cope with.
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Feature
A recent ERS study found that during 2008-09, each dollar of SNAP assistance raised participants’ at-home food spending by an average of 53 cents—a higher portion than in previous studies.
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Feature
Three common precision agricultural information technologies are global positioning system (GPS) guidance systems, GPS yield and soil monitors/maps, and variable-rate input application technologies (VRT). Research shows these technologies had similar positive, but small, impacts on corn profits of between 1 and 3 percent in 2010.
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Finding
According to ERS’s loss-adjusted food availability data, total calories per person decreased by 2 percent between 2000 and 2010. In both years, grains were the primary contributor to daily calories per capita.
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Finding
Between 1992 and 2012, the number of U.S. midsize farms declined by about 5 percent—or just over 6,100 farms. In the same period, midsize farm households have seen their finances improve, with household income doubling and off-farm income tripling in real terms.
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Statistic
New public-use files on the ERS website contain data on food and beverage purchases from food retailers and eating-out places, along with foods acquired for free from schools, family, friends, home gardens, and food pantries.
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Statistic
ERS’s County Typology Codes allow for the analysis of recent rural demographic and economic trends across economic specializations.
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Feature
U.S. private sector funding in food and agricultural R&D has risen rapidly over the last decade, surpassing public sector funding. Falling public sector funding for agricultural R&D in the U.S. and greater spending by some other nations have reduced the U.S. share in public agricultural R&D worldwide.
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Feature
Linking administrative data—the official records of a government program—with data from large Federal surveys leverages the strengths of the two data sources, allowing analyses of public programs and policies not possible using either source separately.
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Finding
In 2015, 16.6 percent of households with children were food insecure, down from 19.2 percent in 2014, meaning that 2.2 million fewer children in 2015 lived in households that had trouble putting adequate food on the table for all their members.
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Finding
Between 2007 and 2010, the share of the average U.S. household’s food budget spent in grocery stores—on ingredients as well as ready-to-eat foods—rose as Americans cut back on eating out, especially at fast-food places.
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Finding
Many farmers in the U.S. use crop insurance to manage the risk of crop failure or low prices. ERS finds that, when examined over multiple years, farmers’ demand for crop insurance is driven more by a farmer’s wealth and the available financial options than by a farmer’s attitude toward risk.
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Finding
In 2012, 35 percent of active farm and ranch land was in counties overlaying a shale play (shale counties). In 2014, about 6 percent of U.S. farm businesses averaged $56,000 in lease and royalty payments from energy production.
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Statistic
The average time spent in meal prep—preparing, serving, and cleaning up afterward—varies by gender, age, and employment status. Households with children and those participating in food assistance programs spend more time in meal prep than other households.
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Finding
Throughout much of the 1990s and early 2000s, food price inflation was lower than economy-wide inflation. However in 7 of the last 9 years, food prices have posted bigger increases than overall inflation.
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Finding
During the 2 years following the December 2003 discovery of a BSE-positive cow in the United States, consumers’ purchases of ground beef fell by an average of 0.26 pounds per person following each of the 12 ground beef recalls issued by the Government.
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Finding
Holding other factors constant, such as assistance from traditional disaster relief programs, findings show significant differences in income and employment growth between counties that suffered relatively small losses from Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Opportunity Zone and similar counties outside of that zone.
