Opportunities for population growth and economic expansion vary widely from one nonmetro county to another, and new regional patterns of growth and decline have emerged in recent years. Spurred by an energy boom, large sections of the northern Great Plains turned around decades of population decline. Population growth slowed considerably in the Mountain West for the first time in decades, affecting numerous counties in western Colorado and Wyoming, central Oregon, northern Idaho, and elsewhere. At the same time, nonmetro population growth switched to decline in 21 Eastern States between 2004-06 and 2010-12. For example, most metro counties in Florida maintained above-average population growth through the recent housing crisis and recession, but nonmetro areas there went from 3-percent growth during 2004-06 to a -0.44-percent decline in the past 2 years. This map is found in the May 2013 issue of Amber Waves magazine.

Knowing how often and how long households are food insecure is important for understanding the extent and character of food insecurity and for maximizing the effectiveness of programs aimed at alleviating it. Food-insecure households are those that are unable, at times during the year, to acquire adequate food because they lack sufficient money and other resources. Two studies commissioned by ERS found spells of food insecurity to be generally of short duration. For example, one study found that half of households that were food insecure at some time during the 5-year study period experienced the condition in just a single year and only 6 percent were food insecure in all 5 years. However, the fact that households move in and out of food insecurity also means that a considerably larger number of households are exposed to food insecurity at some time over a period of several years than are food insecure in any single year. The statistics for this chart are from “Food Insecurity in U.S. Households Rarely Persists Over Many Years” in the June 2013 issue of ERS’s Amber Waves magazine.

The Urban Influence (UI) codes classify all U.S. counties, as well as “municipios” in Puerto Rico, by size of metropolitan area, adjacency to a metropolitan or micropolitan area, and size of the largest town. These codes are updated every 10 years after the release of new decennial census data and updated metropolitan and micropolitan areas by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The latest UI codes were released in May 2013. Compared with 2003, in 2013 there are an additional 78 metropolitan counties, 114 counties moved from nonmetropolitan to metropolitan, and 36 counties changed from metropolitan to nonmetropolitan for a total of 1,167. The number of nonmetro counties fell from 2,053 to 1,976 between 2003 and 2013. The UI codes enable users to analyze the diversity of rural counties by their size, and access to larger economies that serve as centers of  trade, finance, information, and communications. The codes provide a more finely articulated measure of rural and take advantage of OMB’s metropolitan, micropolitan, and noncore classification system. ERS uses the codes extensively in its research on rural labor, poverty, population change, employment, and unemployment. This map is found on the ERS website as part of the Urban Influence Codes data product, updated May 2013.

China is the fastest growing major economy in the world and is now also the largest single country market for U.S. agricultural exports. Rapid growth in incomes and urbanization are key drivers of China’s growing demand for agricultural goods, and the appreciation of China’s currency—the renminbi—against the U.S. dollar is helping to make U.S. goods competitive in the Chinese market in recent years. During the 1980s and 1990s, China maintained an undervalued renminbi, a policy that supported China’s rapid export growth and accumulation of the world’s largest current account surplus and holdings of U.S. dollar reserves. Since 2006, however, China has followed a policy of modest rates of appreciation of the renminbi, which has become more pronounced since 2008. This chart is based on data found in the Agricultural Exchange Rate Data Set.

U.S. fluid milk consumption has fallen over the last 40 years from an average of 0.96 cups per person per day in 1970 to 0.61 cups in 2010.  A recent ERS study found that changes in the frequency of drinking milk since the 1970s, not in portion sizes, contributed to the trend. Between 1977-78 and 2007-08, the share of children age 2-12 that did not drink fluid milk on a given day rose from 12 percent to 24 percent, while the share that drank milk three or more times per day dropped from 31 to 18 percent. The share of teenagers and adults who did not drink fluid milk on a given day rose from 41 to 54 percent, and the share that drank milk three or more times fell from 13 to 4 percent. This chart appears in the ERS report, Why Are Americans Consuming Less Fluid Milk? A Look at Generational Differences in Intake Frequency, ERR-149, released May 29, 2013.

Farmers have choices for how they prepare the soil; reduce weed growth; incorporate fertilizer, manure and organic matter into the soil; and seed their crops, including the number of tillage operations and tillage depth. Tillage practices affect soil carbon, water pollution, and farmers’ energy and pesticide use. No-till is generally the least intensive form of tillage. Approximately 35 percent of U.S. cropland (88 million acres) planted to eight major crops had no-till operations in 2009, according to ERS researchers who estimated tillage trends based on 2000-07 data from USDA’s Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS). Furthermore, the use of no-till increased over time for corn, cotton, soybeans, rice and wheat, the crops for which the ARMS data were sufficient to calculate a trend. While a more recent estimate of nationwide use of no-till by all major crop producers is not available, based on the results of recent surveys of wheat producers in 2009 and corn producers in 2010, it seems likely that no-till’s use continues to spread, albeit at a much reduced pace among corn producers. This chart is found on the ERS topic page, Soil Tillage and Crop Rotation, and in the ERS report, Agriculture’s Supply and Demand for Energy and Energy Products, EIB-112, May 2013.

Food-insecure households are those that are unable at times during the year to acquire adequate food because they lack sufficient money and other resources. Food security is especially important for children because their diet quality affects not only their current health, but also their development and future well-being. Food-insecurity rates for households with children can differ across States due the characteristics of their populations and to State-level economic conditions. The prevalence of food insecurity in households with children ranged from a low of almost 11 percent in New Hampshire to a high of about 24 percent in Texas. (Data from nine national surveys conducted in December of each year in 2003-11 were combined to provide reliable State-level estimates.) The prevalence of food insecurity in households with children was below the national average (18.3 percent) in 19 States, above the national average in 14 States and the District of Columbia, and near the national average in 17 States. This chart appears in Food Insecurity in Households with Children: Prevalence, Severity, and Household Characteristics, 2010-11, EIB-113, released May 30, 2013.

According to the most recent Census of Agriculture, women-operated farms—farms where a woman was the principal operator—numbered 306,200 in 2007 (13.9 percent of all U.S. farms). Most women-operated farms (about 62 percent in 2007) specialized in grazing livestock or miscellaneous crops, but these are mostly small operations that contributed relatively little (16 percent) to the total sales of women-operated farms. A large majority of women-operated grazing livestock farms and ranches had less than $10,000 in annual sales, and 98 percent of miscellaneous crop farms had no sales in 2007.  Most sales by women-operated farms (nearly 72 percent in 2007) came from farms specializing in poultry and eggs, specialty crops, grains and oilseeds, and dairy. While accounting for only about 20 percent of women-operated farms, average annual sales exceeded $130,000 for farms with these specializations. This chart is found in the May 2013 Amber Waves.

USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides eligible low-income households with monthly benefits to purchase food. One goal of the program is to support low-income families in making food choices consistent with dietary guidance. ERS researchers recently examined how the program affects the diets of participants. One finding that stands out is that SNAP increases the likelihood that participants will consume whole fruit by over 23 percentage points. Before participants enroll in SNAP, they rarely ever eat whole fruit on a given day. After they enroll in the program, SNAP participants have a 25-percent probability of eating whole fruit. Low-income individuals who are not participating in SNAP have a 53-percent probability and high-income individuals a 66-percent probability of eating whole fruit on a given day. This chart is based on statistics in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Participation Leads to Modest Changes in Diet Quality, ERR-147, released April 24, 2013.

Brazil is the largest global producer and exporter of sugar and, over the long term, world sugar prices are closely linked to production costs in Brazil, as well as movements in the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Brazilian real. Prior to 2003/4, the depreciation of the real against the dollar contributed to declines in Brazilian production costs when denominated in dollars. Since 2003/04, the real has appreciated against the dollar, leading to a 210-percent increase in dollar-denominated Brazilian production costs, while production costs in real terms rose just 64 percent. Rising dollar-denominated Brazilian production costs have contributed to the 316-percent increase in nominal world raw sugar prices from a 23-year low of 6.2 cents/lb in 2003/04 to 25.8 cents/lb in 2011/12. This chart appears in World Raw Sugar Prices: The Influence if Brazilian Costs of Production and World Surplus/Deficit Measures, SSS-M-297-01, released May 29, 2013.