The ERS Data Product Review Council (DPRC) completed its thirteenth round of data product reviews in Fall 2024. Upcoming reviews planned for Spring 2025. The review process is used to evaluate data products adheres to ERS’s Data Quality Standards.
Completed Reviews
Date: Fall 2024
Council members: Molly Burress (Chair), Jae-Wan Ahn, Carrie Jones, Tatiana Borisova, Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Megan Husby, Christine Stevenson, Trina Weilert, Gregory York (Manager),
Commodity Costs and Returns: Cost and return estimates are reported for the United States and major production regions for corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, grain sorghum, rice, peanuts, oats, barley, milk, hogs, and cow-calf. The series of commodity cost and return estimates for the U.S. and regions is divided into Recent and Historical estimates. Recent estimates date back to the most recent major revision in accounting methods, account format, and regional definitions for each commodity. Historical estimates date back to when the series began. Cost-of-Production Forecasts are also available for major U.S. field crops. Organic Costs and Returns for corn, milk, wheat, and soybeans are also available.
Agricultural Trade Multipliers: Agricultural Trade Multipliers (ATM) provide annual estimates of employment and output effects of trade in farm and food products on the U.S. economy. When expressed as multipliers, these effects reflect the amount of economic activity and jobs generated by agricultural exports.
Vegetables and Pulses Data: Vegetables and Pulses Data provides users with comprehensive statistics on fresh and processed vegetables and dry pulses in the United States, as well as some global data for these sectors. It integrates data from the ERS market outlook program with data collected by different Federal and international statistical agencies to facilitate analyses of economic performance over time, and across domestic and foreign markets. Currently, data are located in the following inter-related products.
Date: Spring 2024
Council members: Molly Burress (Chair), Katherine Ralston, Mark Denbaly, Jae-Wan Ahn, Carrie Jones, Tatiana Borisova, Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Megan Husby, Mark Fairhurst, Gregory York (Manager),
Sugar and Sweeteners Yearbook Tables: This data product contains summary statistics on sugar, sugarbeets, sugarcane, corn sweeteners (dextrose, glucose, and high-fructose corn syrup), and honey. The majority of the data are compiled from the following USDA agencies: Agricultural Marketing Service, Farm Service Agency, Foreign Agricultural Service, National Agricultural Statistic Service, and Office of the Chief Economist. These data can be used to monitor and analyze U.S. sweetener policy and events that affect the domestic, Mexican, and other international sweetener markets.
Purchase to Plate: The Purchase to Plate Suite (PP-Suite) is a set of data products developed by linking household and retail grocery scanner data with the USDA Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS), one of USDA’s nutrition databases. The National Average Prices allow users to import price estimates for foods found in USDA dietary survey data. Restricted access elements of the Purchase to Plate Suite include the Crosswalk, Price Tool, and Ingredient Tool.
Foreign Agricultural Trade of the United States: Foreign Agricultural Trade of the United States (FATUS) is a standard USDA aggregation of several thousand Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) codes into hierarchical agricultural groups most used by the public. Using the FATUS groupings, this data product presents summary tables of U.S. merchandise trade, U.S. agricultural trade, value of high-value and bulk commodities, and top country export destinations and import sources for total U.S. agricultural trade.
Date: Fall 2023
Council members: Katherine Ralston (Chair), Mark Denbaly, Jae-Wan Ahn, Carrie Jones, Tatiana Borisova, Molly Burress, Yacob Zereyesus, Beth Couturier, Trina Weilert, Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Megan Husby, Mark Fairhurst, Gregory York (Manager),
Fertilizer Use and Price: This product summarizes fertilizer consumption in the United States by plant nutrient and major fertilizer products—as well as consumption of mixed fertilizers, secondary nutrients, and micronutrients—for 1960 through the latest year for which statistics are available.
Cotton, Wool, and Textile Data: This data product contains data on U.S. and world cotton supply, demand, and prices, U.S. wool supply, demand, and prices, and U.S. textile and apparel fiber trade data. The data product is maintained by the Economic Research Service to support related commodity market analysis and research.
Fruit and Tree Nuts Data: Fruit and Tree Nuts Data provide users with comprehensive statistics on fresh and processed fruits, melons, and tree nuts in the United States, as well as some global data for these sectors. It harmonizes and integrates data from the ERS market outlook program with data collected by different Federal and international statistical agencies to facilitate analyses of economic performance over time and across domestic and foreign markets.
Date: Summer 2023
Council members: Katherine Ralston (Chair), Mark Denbaly, Jae-Wan Ahn, Carrie Jones, Tatiana Borisova, Molly Burress, Yacob Zereyesus, Beth Couturier, Trina Weilert, Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Gregory York (Manager)
Natural Amenities Scale: The natural amenities scale is a data product that provides a measure of the physical characteristics of a county area that enhance the location as a place to live. The scale is based on six measures of climate, topography, and water area that reflect environmental qualities most people prefer. The data are available for counties in the lower 48 States.
International Macroeconomic Data Set: The International Macroeconomic Data Set provides historical and projected data for 181 countries that account for more than 99 percent of the world economy. These data and projections are assembled explicitly to serve as underlying assumptions for the annual USDA Agricultural Projections, which provide a 10-year outlook on U.S. and global agriculture. The macroeconomic projections describe the long-term, 10-year scenario that is used as a benchmark for analyzing the impacts of alternative scenarios and macroeconomic shocks.
Livestock and Meat International Trade Data: The Livestock and Meat International Trade Data product includes monthly and annual data for imports and exports of live cattle, hogs, sheep, goats, beef and veal, pork, lamb and mutton, chicken meat, turkey meat, eggs and egg products.
Date: Fall-Winter 2022-23
Council members: Katherine Ralston (Chair), Mark Denbaly, Jae-Wan Ahn, Carrie Jones, Tatiana Borisova, Molly Burress, Yacob Zereyesus, Beth Couturier, Trina Weilert, Gregory York (Manager)
Agricultural Productivity in the U.S.: This premier data product provides a historical snapshot of U.S. farm sector productivity from 1948 – 2019 and an in-depth analysis across States from 1960–2004. The product gives users insights on agricultural outputs, inputs, growth metrics, relative productivity levels, and price and quantity indices for outputs and inputs. Tables include price and quantity indices for agricultural inputs and outputs and summarize sources of growth.
Food Security in the United States: The Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement (CPS FSS) is the source of national and State-level statistics on food insecurity used in USDA's annual reports on household food security. The CPS is a monthly labor force survey of about 50,000 households conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Once each year, after answering the labor force questions, the same households are asked a series of questions (the Food Security Supplement) about food security, food expenditures, and use of food and nutrition assistance programs. Food security data have been collected by the CPS FSS each year since 1995.
Frontier and Remote Area Codes: The ZIP-code-level Frontier and Remote Area (FAR) codes provide a delineation that is both geographically detailed and adjustable with reasonable ranges. The FAR codes are both geographically detailed and adjustable, in order to be usefully applied in diverse research and policy contexts.
Livestock and Meat Domestic Data: The ERS Livestock and Meat Domestic Data page includes data files covering domestic meat supply, disappearance, as well as live animal and wholesale prices for red meat and poultry products.
Rural-Urban Commuting Area Codes: The RUCA codes dataset is an innovative tool that redefines the U.S. census tracts classification with metrics such as population density, urbanization, and daily commuting. Our 2010 RUCA classifications have been meticulously applied to ZIP code areas, ensuring an in-depth look into your local neighborhoods.
Wheat Data: This data product contains summary statistics on the five classes of wheat: Hard Red Winter, Hard Red Spring, Soft Red Winter, White, and Durum. This product includes data related to the monthly Wheat Outlook and monthly updates to the Wheat Yearbook tables.
Date: Fall-Winter 2021-22
Council members: Mark Denbaly (Chair), Xuan Pham, Carrie Jones, Beth Couturier, Trina Weilert, Jessica Todd, Yacob Zereyesus, Katherine Ralston
Ag Exchange Rate Data Set: This dataset contains annual and monthly data for exchange rates important to U.S. agriculture. It includes both nominal and real exchange rates for 79 countries, plus the European Union (EU), as well as real trade-weighted exchange rate indexes for many commodities and aggregations. All series are updated quarterly; data series start at the beginning of 1970 and run to the last available data point.
State Fact Sheets: The ERS State Fact Sheets provide information on population, income, poverty, food security, education, employment/unemployment, farm characteristics, farm financial indicators, top commodities, and agricultural exports. Data are available for all States, and for metro/nonmetro breakouts within States. Links to available county-level data are included where applicable.
Food Consumption and Nutrient Intakes: Based on the 2015-18 National Health and Nutrition Examination data, this data product provides data on food consumption and nutrient intake by food source and demographic characteristics among U.S. consumers. In addition to reporting average intake amounts, food and nutrient consumption is expressed in terms of density (amounts of food and nutrient for each 1,000 of caloric intake), which can be compared with the Federal dietary recommendations to assess U.S. consumers’ dietary status and gain insights about shortfalls in American diets relative to the dietary guidelines.
Date: Spring-Summer 2019
Council members: Utpal Vasavada (Chair), Mark Denbaly, Lewrene Glaser, Mary Maher, Dan Milkove, Katherine Ralston, Stacy Sneeringer, and Pheny Weidman
Normalized Prices provides a calculation of prices of key agricultural inputs and outputs like crops, livestock, and dairy. The prices are smoothed out through moving averages to adjust for the effects of short run seasonal or cyclical variation.
Rural-Urban Continuum Codes form a classification scheme that distinguishes metropolitan (metro) counties by the population size of their metro area and nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) counties by the degree of urbanization and adjacency to metro areas.
State Export Data provide estimates of annual U.S. agricultural export values by State and commodity.
U.S. Food Imports provides import values of edible products (food and beverages) entering U.S. ports and their origin of shipment. Food and beverage import values are compiled by calendar year into food groups corresponding to major commodities or level of processing.
Urban Influence Codes form a classification scheme that distinguishes metropolitan (metro) counties by the population size of their metro area and nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) counties by the size of the largest city or town and proximity to metro and micropolitan areas.
Date: Summer-Fall 2018
Council members: Utpal Vasavada (Chair), Bryce Cooke, Mark Denbaly, Lewrene Glaser, Mary Maher, Dan Milkove, Katherine Ralston, and Pheny Weidman
Agricultural Research Funding in the Public and Private Sectors provides data for public and private funding of food and agricultural research and development over the years 1970-2015 (public) and 1970-2014 (private) in nominal dollars and in values adjusted for inflation.
Farm Household Income and Characteristics provides the latest household income forecast and estimates for principal operators of U.S. family farms, including data on beginning, socially disadvantaged, and limited-resource farmers; and health insurance coverage and expenditures of farm operator households.
Fruits and Vegetable Prices provides information on retail costs of U.S. fruits and vegetables. ERS estimates average retail prices for over 150 commonly consumed fresh and processed fruits and vegetables.
SNAP Policy Database provides a central data source for information on State-level program policies in USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), such as eligibility criteria, recertification and reporting requirements, benefit issuance methods, and availability of online applications.
U.S. Bioenergy Statistics is a source of information on biofuels intended to present a picture of the renewable energy industry and its relationship to agriculture. The statistics highlight the factors that influence the demand for agricultural feedstocks for biofuels production; for instance, numerous tables emphasize the relationship between energy and commodity markets.
Vegetables and Pulses Data provides users with comprehensive statistics on fresh and processed vegetables and pulses in the United States, as well as global production and trade data for these sectors. The product harmonizes and integrates data from the ERS Market Outlook program with data collected by different Federal and international statistical agencies to facilitate analyses of economic performance over time and across domestic and foreign markets.
Date: Fall 2017-Spring 2018
Council members: Mark Denbaly (Chair), Bryce Cooke, Lewrene Glaser, Mary Maher, Dan Milkove, Katherine Ralston, Utpal Vasavada, and Pheny Weidman
ARMS – Farm Financial: USDA's Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) is the primary source of information on the financial condition, production practices, resource use, and economic well-being of farm households. The December 8, 2016, release includes information on farm finances from the 2015 ARMS survey, now available through the Farm and Household Finance Tailored Reports.
Food Environment Atlas: The Food Environment Atlas is a web-based mapping tool developed by ERS that allows users to compare U.S. counties in terms of their "food environment"—indicators (most at the county level) that help determine and reflect a community’s access to affordable, healthy food.
National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS): USDA's National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) is a nationally representative survey of household food purchases and acquisitions.
International Agricultural Productivity: This data product provides agricultural output, input, and total factor productivity (TFP) growth rates across the countries and regions of the world in a consistent, comparable way for 1961–2013.
International Food Security: This dataset is the basis for the International Food Security Assessment, 2017–27, released in July 2017. It provides annual country-level data on production, consumption, and trade of grains and root and tuber crops, food aid, and macroeconomic variables for 76 countries.
Major Land Uses: The Major Land Uses (MLU) series is the longest running, most comprehensive accounting of all major uses of public and private land in the United States. The MLU series contains acreage estimates of major uses by region and State, beginning in 1945 and published about every 5 years since.
Oil Crops Yearbook: Oilseed, oil meal, and fats and oils supply and use statistics. Includes oilseed acreage, yield, and production estimates and farm and wholesale price series.
Date: Winter 2016/17
Council members: Mark Denbaly (Chair), Lewrene Glaser, Stephen MacDonald, Mary Maher, Daniel Milkove, Katherine Ralston, Utpal Vasavada, and Pheny Weidman
County Typology Codes classify all U.S. counties according to six mutually exclusive categories of economic dependence and six overlapping categories of policy-relevant themes. They provide a convenient tool to summarize rural economic and social conditions, and are thus used by other Federal agencies and academia.
Dairy Data covers U.S. supply, demand, and trade for milk and major dairy products.
Season-Average Price Forecasts provides three Excel file spreadsheet models that use futures prices to forecast the U.S. season-average price received and the implied Price Loss Coverage (PLC) payment rate for three major field crops (corn, soybeans, and wheat).
Eating and Health Module is a supplement to the Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey that captures information on secondary eating and drinking, food shopping and preparation, health, and household income.
Price Spreads from Farm to Consumer estimates farm-to-retail price spreads to measure the costs of processing and marketing foods. They are calculated as the difference between the prices farmers receive for the raw commodities they sell and the prices consumers pay for equivalent food products. Estimates are reported for individual foods and food baskets that represent a typical household’s purchases over 1 year.
Date: Spring 2016
Council members: Lewrene Glaser (Chair), Mark Denbaly, Hisham El Osta, Karen Hamrick, Stephen MacDonald, Mary Maher, Utpal Vasavada, and Pheny Weidman
Farm Income and Wealth Statistics provides the latest U.S. farm-sector income and wealth statistics data. The data include historical U.S. and State-level farm income and wealth estimates as well as U.S.-level forecasts for the current calendar year.
Food Access Research Atlas provides spatial indicators of food access in low-income and other census tracts, and enables users to create maps depicting food access for selected populations by census tract using different measures and indicators of supermarket accessibility. The data can be downloaded for community planning or research purposes.
Food Expenditures annually measures total U.S. food expenditures, including purchases by consumers, governments, businesses, and nonprofit organizations. ERS developed the series in 1987, and data are available from 1929 through 2014.
Meat Price Spreads provides monthly average price values, and the differences among those values, at the farm, wholesale, and retail stages of the production and marketing chain for selected cuts of beef, pork, and broilers.
Organic Prices offers wholesale prices for select organic and conventional fruits and vegetables, first receiver prices for organic poultry and eggs, and f.o.b. and spot market prices for organic grain and feedstuffs.
Phytosanitary Regulation identifies which countries, under USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service phytosanitary rules, are eligible to export to the United States the fresh fruits and vegetables that are most important in the American diet.
Date: Fall 2015
Council members: Lewrene Glaser (Chair), Mark Denbaly, Hisham El Osta, Karen Hamrick, Stephen MacDonald, Mary Maher, Utpal Vasavada, and Pheny Weidman
Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S. summarizes the adoption of herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant crops since their introduction in 1996. Data for 2000-15 cover genetically engineered varieties of corn, cotton, and soybeans for the United States and States.
Agricultural Trade Multipliers provide estimates of employment and/or output effects of trade in farm and food products on the U.S. economy. These effects, when expressed as multipliers, reflect the amount of economic activity and/or jobs generated by agricultural exports.
Atlas of Rural and Small-Town America assembles statistics on people, jobs, agriculture, and county types. Data have been updated to reflect the latest population, poverty, and American Community Survey statistics.
Cost Estimates of Foodborne Illnesses offers detailed data about the costs of major foodborne illnesses in the United States, updating and extending previous ERS research.
Food Price Outlook provides ERS food price forecasts for the short-term period. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for food is probably the most widely used indicator of changes in retail food prices.
Rice Yearbook offers data on U.S. rice production, supply, disappearance, trade, and prices. Includes State acreage, yield, and production data; U.S. and world price series; program statistics; and world supply and use estimates.
Date: Spring 2015
Council members: Mitch Morehart (Chair), Mark Denbaly, John Dyck, Lewrene Glaser, Karen Hamrick, Mary Maher, Utpal Vasavada, and Pheny Weidman
China Agricultural and Economic Data is a collection of agricultural-related data from official statistical publications of the People's Republic of China. There are 250 data items available at the national level, and 45 crop, livestock, agricultural output, and population items available at the provincial level.
The Food Availability (Per Capita) Data System includes three distinct but related data series on food and nutrient availability for consumption. The data serve as popular proxies for food consumption at the national level. Food availability data are the foundation for loss-adjusted food availability and nutrient availability data.
Western Irrigated Agriculture summarizes the farm-structural characteristics for irrigated farms in the 17 Western States based on USDA's 2008 and 1998 Farm and Ranch Irrigation Surveys.
Date: Fall 2014
Council members: Mitch Morehart (Chair), Mark Denbaly, John Dyck, Lewrene Glaser, Karen Hamrick, Mary Maher, Utpal Vasavada, and Pheny Weidman
Feed Grains Database provides statistics on four feed grains (corn, grain sorghum, barley, and oats), foreign coarse grains (feed grains plus rye, millet, and mixed grains), hay, and related items. This includes data published in the monthly Feed Outlook and previously annual Feed Yearbook.
Food Dollar Series measures annual expenditures by U.S. consumers on domestically produced food. The series is comprised of three primary components, each showing different ways to split up the same food dollar: the marketing bill, the industry group, and the primary group.
State Fact Sheets provide information on population, income, poverty, food security, education, employment, organic agriculture, farm characteristics, farm financial indicators, top commodities, and exports. Updated items include 2012 Census of Agriculture data and unemployment for 2013.
Date: Spring 2014 (pilot round)
Council members: Mitch Morehart (Chair), Patrick Canning, Mark Denbaly, Lewrene Glaser, Mary Maher, Utpal Vasavada, and Pheny Weidman
Agricultural Productivity in the U.S. provides statistics of total factor productivity (TFP), along with estimates of 10 outputs and 12 inputs in the U.S. farm sector for the 1948-2011 time period.
Commodity Costs and Returns provide estimates for 12 major crop and livestock products since 1975. ERS has been the sole source of national-level commodity costs and returns—the only set of estimates that is consistently evaluated across the United States and utilizes a sampling structure ensuring that the estimates are representative of commodity production in the Nation and major production regions.
Food Security in the United States provides annual estimates of food insecurity for the Nation overall and by selected household characteristics, and for States (three years of data are combined for State estimates). ERS is the preeminent source of U.S. food security estimates. Food security for a household means access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.