ERS Charts of Note
Subscribe to our Charts of Note series, which highlights economic research and analysis on agriculture, food, the environment, and rural America. Each week, this series highlights charts of interest from current and past ERS research.
At the end of the year, users can look forward to our Editors’ Picks of the Best of Charts of Note.
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
The latest USDA Census of Agriculture data show that just under 55 million acres of cropland in the contiguous United States were irrigated in 2022. This was the lowest level since 1992 and a decrease of roughly 3 million acres from the last census in 2017, when irrigated cropland reached a record high 58 million acres. The decline was driven largely by decreases of 1.8 million acres (14 percent) in the Mountain region, 0.9 million acres (7 percent) in the Northern Plains, and 0.7 million acres (15 percent) in the Southern Plains. During 2022, these regions experienced severe, widespread drought conditions and other factors, such as restricted water supplies throughout the western United States, which broadly affected irrigated acreage. Despite having the largest decrease, the Mountain region still contains the most irrigated acreage at 11.4 million acres in 2022. About 18 percent of U.S. cropland is irrigated. For more information on the 2022 Census of Agriculture, see USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service’s website. This chart is drawn from the USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) report Major Uses of Land in the United States, 2017 with updates from the 2022 Census of Agriculture data. For more information on trends in U.S. irrigated agriculture, see the ERS topic page Irrigation and Water Use.
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Labor is essential to the production, processing, marketing, and transportation of products from farm to port. USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) annually measures this labor using an agricultural trade multiplier that estimates the employment and output effects of trade in farm and food products on the U.S. economy. In 2022, U.S. agricultural exports including biodiesel were valued at $197.4 billion and supported 1.25 million full-time jobs. On average, every $1 billion of exported U.S. agricultural products supported 6,338 jobs. Ten agricultural commodity exports supported 745,200 of the 1.25 million jobs—just under 60 percent. Soybean and corn exports alone supported more than 364,000 jobs, and bovine, chicken, and swine meat exports supported about 185,000 jobs. This chart is drawn from the ERS Agricultural Trade Multipliers, released May 2024.
Monday, October 21, 2024
USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) covered about 22.9 million acres of environmentally sensitive land at the end of fiscal year 2023, with an annual budget of roughly $1.8 billion. This made CRP the largest single USDA conservation program in terms of spending that year. Through CRP, enrollees receive annual and other incentive payments for taking eligible, environmentally sensitive land out of production for 10 to 15 years. Program acreage tends to be concentrated on marginally productive cropland that is susceptible to erosion by wind or rainfall. The program is administered by the Farm Service Agency with a goal of re-establishing valuable land cover, which helps improve water quality, prevent soil erosion, and reduce loss of wildlife habitat. A large share of land is enrolled in CRP from Texas to Montana and North Dakota across the Great Plains, where rainfall is limited and much of the land is subject to potentially severe wind erosion. Smaller concentrations of CRP land are found in eastern Washington; southern Iowa; northern Missouri; along the Mississippi River in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi; southeastern Idaho; and northwestern Utah. This map is found in the USDA, Economic Research Service data product Ag and Food Statistics: Charting the Essentials.
Thursday, October 17, 2024
In 2022, there were 42,708 food and beverage manufacturing establishments in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census's County Business Patterns. Food and beverage manufacturing establishments turn raw food commodities into products for intermediate or final consumption. Food and beverage processing establishments are located throughout the United States, but California had the most such establishments at 6,569, or 15 percent of the total. Texas (2,898) and New York (2,748) were the second- and third-leading food and beverage manufacturing States. California led the Nation for every category of food and beverage manufacturing establishments except “animal slaughtering and processing,” for which Texas had 288 establishments, and “seafood processing and packaging,” for which Alaska had 86 establishments. The number of manufacturing establishments for other industry segments are also reported in County Business Patterns. This chart appears on the USDA, Economic Research Service’s Food and Beverage Manufacturing topic page.
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Global food demand is projected to increase 2.8 percent annually over the next 10 years, according to the latest International Food Security Assessment (IFSA) from USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS). The region with the highest projected growth in demand is Sub-Saharan Africa at 3.9 percent per year. In comparison, the Latin America and the Caribbean region is projected to have the slowest food demand growth of IFSA regions at 1.8 percent per year. Using food price, income, and population projections, IFSA estimates food demand in 83 low- and middle-income countries. In those 83 countries, demand is projected to grow from 800.2 million metric tons in 2024 to 1,050.9 million metric tons in 2034. Growth in food demand can be caused by two factors—increasing per capita food consumption and population growth. In all regions except for Sub-Saharan Africa, growth in total food demand is driven mainly by per capita food consumption rather than population growth. For the Former Soviet Union region, 95 percent of the overall food demand growth in the next 10 years is attributable to growth in per capita food consumption based on projections for significant growth in per capita income. In addition to annual food demand growth in Sub-Saharan Africa rising the fastest over the next 10 years, 66 percent of the growth rate in food demand in the region is due to population growth. With per capita incomes in Sub-Saharan Africa projected to only rise 1.5 percent annually by 2034, the region’s share of the food-insecure population is projected to increase. This chart appears in the ERS report, International Food Security Assessment, 2024-34, released August 2024. See also this related Chart of Note, Despite global improvements in food insecurity, progress for Sub-Saharan Africa lags.
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
A farm’s reliance on labor varies by commodity specialization. On average, labor costs (including contract labor, hired labor, and worker benefits, such as insurance) accounted for about 13 percent of total farm cash expenses in 2022. Farms specializing in the production of specialty crops, which include fruits, tree nuts, vegetables, beans (pulses), and horticultural nursery crops, had the highest labor costs across farm types, with labor accounting for 38 cents of every dollar in cash expenses. In contrast, operations specializing in corn and soybeans spent the least on labor costs as a percentage of total cash farm expenses in 2022, with each farm spending 4 cents of every dollar of cash expenses on labor. Corn and soybean farms have lower farm labor expenses resulting from higher adoption rates of labor-saving innovations such as technology and chemical herbicides. Among livestock specialized farms, poultry and dairy farms spent the highest share at 13 and 12 percent of total cash expenses, respectively, on labor. Cattle producers spent the least (6 percent of total cash expenses) among livestock specialized farms. This chart updates information in the USDA, Economic Research Service report America’s Diverse Family Farms: 2021 Edition, published in December 2021.
2022 Census of Agriculture: Puerto Rico farms with crop sales show rebound following 2017 hurricanes
Thursday, October 10, 2024
The number of farms in Puerto Rico growing crops and the sales value of those crops increased between 2018 and 2022, according to data from the 2022 Census of Agriculture. The previous Census captured the effects of major destruction to Puerto Rico’s agricultural sector caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in late 2017. The hurricanes’ impact was spread across all crops, with the number of farms falling 59 percent from 9,367 farms in 2012 to 3,877 farms in 2018. The damage accelerated the trend of consolidation of crop land from smaller farms to fewer, larger farms. Initially, the damage led to a transition away from fruit- and coffee-producing trees, which take time to bring to productive maturity, and to grain and other field crops, which are quicker to generate revenue. While other crop sales declined by 36 percent from 2012 to 2018, grains and field crops sales increased nearly eightfold and retained that level of sales from 2018 into 2022. More recently, spurred by rising global prices, coffee sales grew by 280 percent, from $4.8 million to $18.1 million between 2018 and 2022. Fruit and coconut sales grew by nearly 168 percent, while banana and plantain sales rose by 58 percent. Sales for other crops (pineapples, root crops or tubers, and grasses) increased by 62 percent in 2022. Total crop sales for 2022, which were partly driven by higher prices, surpassed 2012, growing by 46 percent from 2018 to 2022 to $353 million. For more details on the hurricanes’ effect on Puerto Rico’s agricultural sector, see the USDA, Economic Research Service report, Puerto Rico’s Agricultural Economy in the Aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria.
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
USDA’s National School Lunch Program (NSLP) served 4.7 billion lunches in fiscal year (FY) 2023, and nearly 241 billion lunches since FY 1969. Students are typically eligible for either a free, reduced-price, or full-price lunch through the program depending on their household’s income. In many schools, the NSLP allows all students to be served free meals regardless of their household income, a policy colloquially known as “universal free meals.” About 136 billion, or 56.4 percent, of all NSLP lunches served since FY 1969 were served for free or at a reduced price, and that share has been increasing over time. The share of lunches served for free or at a reduced price rose from 15.1 percent in FY 1969 to 74.1 percent in FY 2019. An even higher share of lunches was served for free or at a reduced price from FY 2020 through FY 2022 largely because of USDA waivers allowing meals to be provided free of charge to all students nationwide during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. USDA pandemic waivers also allowed schools to serve meals through the Summer Food Service Program or the NSLP’s Seamless Summer Option in those years, while the temporary Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program reimbursed eligible families for the value of school meals missed because of pandemic-related disruptions to school operations. The waivers expired in Summer 2022, while P-EBT expired at the end of FY 2023. Spending on the program has also increased over time, from an inflation-adjusted $1.3 billion (in 2023 dollars) in FY 1969 to $15.8 billion in FY 2023. A version of this chart appears on the USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) National School Lunch Program page within the Child Nutrition Programs topic page, as well as in the ERS report The National School Lunch Program: Background, Trends, and Issues, 2024 Edition, published September 2024.
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
Rural areas have experienced an increase in both natural-cause and external-cause mortality rates among the prime working-age population—those aged 25 to 54. Researchers with USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) analyzed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention death data from two separate three-year periods, 1999–2001 and 2017–2019, for two types of death categories in both rural and urban areas. External causes include drug overdose, suicide, and alcohol-induced deaths, while deaths from natural causes include disease-related deaths like heart disease and cancer. Externally caused death rates increased for the prime working-age population in both rural and urban areas, although rural areas had a slightly greater increase (36 deaths per 100,000 residents, compared with 29). However, researchers found that only in rural areas did natural-cause mortality rates increase for the prime working-age population. Rural, natural-cause morality rates increased by 14 deaths per 100,000 residents, while urban rates decreased by 37. About 46 million people—almost 14 percent of the U.S. population—live in rural areas. This chart appears in the ERS report The Nature of the Rural-Urban Mortality Gap, published in March 2024.
Monday, October 7, 2024
Genetically engineered seeds were commercially introduced for major field crops in the United States in 1996, with adoption rates increasing rapidly in the years that followed. The most planted trait types of genetically engineered seeds are herbicide tolerant (HT) and insect resistant (Bt). These traits can be added individually to seeds or combined into in a single seed, called stacked seed traits. USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) reports information on genetically engineered HT and Bt crops in the data product Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S. These data show that by 2008 more than 50 percent of corn, cotton, and soybean acres were planted with genetically engineered seeds using at least one trait—a number that has risen to 90 percent as of 2024. Although traits other than Bt have been developed, such as virus, fungus, or drought resistance, and enhanced protein, oil, or vitamin content, HT and Bt traits are the most commonly used in U.S. crop production. While HT seeds are also widely used in alfalfa, canola, and sugar beet production, most genetically engineered acres are planted to three major field crops: corn, cotton, and soybeans. This chart appears in the ERS topic page Biotechnology, updated in August 2024.
Thursday, October 3, 2024
USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Online Purchasing Pilot allows households in participating States to purchase groceries online from select authorized retailers using SNAP and Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) benefits. The pilot was originally slated to roll out in fiscal years (FY) 2019 and 2020. Given the onset of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, USDA rapidly expanded the pilot beginning midway through FY 2020 to additional States and retailers. By the end of FY 2020, online benefit redemption was available at seven retailers in 45 States and Washington, DC. With the expansion to Alaska in June 2023, online redemption became available in all States, and the pilot had expanded to 341 retailers by the end of FY 2023. Online SNAP and P-EBT benefit redemption grew steadily from FY 2020 to FY 2023. During April–June 2020 (the first quarter for which complete information on online redemptions was available), $234 million in benefits were redeemed online, or just less than 1 percent of total SNAP and P-EBT redemptions. By the last quarter of FY 2023 (July–September), the value redeemed online had increased almost tenfold to $2.3 billion, or 8.8 percent of all redemptions. This chart appears in the USDA, Economic Research Service’s Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape: Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report, released June 2024.
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
U.S. wheat production for the 2024/25 marketing year is estimated at 1.971 billion bushels, up 9 percent year to year and the highest level since 2016/17. This development stands in contrast to a long-term downward trend in U.S. wheat production resulting from declining acreage as more farmers switched to production of other crops, such as corn and soybeans. For the last two seasons, however, wheat acreage—as measured by area harvested—has risen. High wheat prices during the fall of 2022 encouraged farmers to plant substantially more wheat for the 2023/24 marketing year. Despite area gains, a major drought in regions producing hard red winter wheat (one of the five major classes of wheat) negatively affected the harvestable volume of wheat. In 2024/25, despite less acreage being planted into wheat, more favorable weather is expected to boost area harvested and yield compared with the previous season. Production is forecast higher for hard red winter, hard red spring, white, and durum classes of wheat as conditions have been generally favorable. While soft red winter production is down 24 percent from the previous year’s bumper crop, it is forecast above the recent 5-year average. This chart is drawn from the August 2024 Wheat Outlook and has been updated with recent data.
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020–25 defines fruits and vegetables to include fresh, canned, frozen, and dried products, as well as 100 percent juice. Eating or drinking a cup equivalent of all forms counts equally toward intake recommendations for both food groups. A cup equivalent is generally the edible portion—minus core, pits, and peel—that will fit in a 1-cup measuring cup. For lettuce and other raw leafy vegetables, a cup equivalent is 2 cups, and for raisins and other dried fruits, one-half cup. USDA, Economic Research Service researchers estimated national average retail prices paid in 2022 for 155 fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, all measured in cup equivalents. Neither fresh nor processed forms were consistently less expensive. While fresh carrots eaten raw ($0.30) cost less than canned carrots ($0.59) and fresh apples ($0.50) cost less than applesauce ($0.63), fresh corn ($1.50) was more expensive than frozen corn ($0.64) and fresh spinach ($1.77) was more expensive than frozen spinach ($1.10). Differences in retail prices may reflect prices received by growers, as well as differences in processing, handling, and spoilage costs, which can vary by form and product. This chart appears in the Amber Waves article Satisfying Fruit and Vegetable Recommendations Possible for Under $3 a Day, Data Analysis Shows, published September 2024.
Monday, September 30, 2024
Energy payments, such as for leasing land for wind, oil, or natural gas development, are higher on average for large-scale family farms. Among those receiving payments from 2011 to 2020, large-scale family farms (those with gross cash farm income of $1 million or more), received an average annual energy payment of $152,285. By comparison, small family farms, whose gross cash farm income is less than $350,000, received an average annual energy payment of $18,088. Although the payments for midsize farms (those with gross cash farm income between $350,000 and $999,999) were similar to nonfamily farms, the portion of midsize family farm landowners receiving payments was more than twice as high at 6.82 percent versus 3.23 percent. This indicates that nonfamily farms may have different objectives and face different trade-offs when evaluating whether to lease land for energy development. Between 2011 and 2020, 3.5 percent of farm operations received energy payments, and the average annual payment to the operators was more than $30,000 in 2020 dollars. Read more about the size, frequency, trends, and relative contribution of energy payments to farm operator income in the USDA, Economic Research Service report The Role of Commercial Energy Payments in Agricultural Producer Income, released in April 2024.
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Coffee is the fifth-largest bulk export commodity by value, accounting for about 7 percent of total global bulk agricultural exports, per Trade Data Monitor. The United States is the world’s second leading importer of coffee (both Arabica and Robusta varieties). In 2023, about 80 percent of U.S. unroasted coffee imports came from Latin America (valued at $4.8 billion), principally from Brazil (35 percent) and Colombia (27 percent). Historically, more than 92 percent of U.S. coffee imports have been of the less acidic, higher quality Arabica variety, which commands a premium relative to Robusta coffee. Both Brazil and Colombia are major global producers of Arabica-variety coffee beans, though import shares have declined in recent years. In 2023, lower fertilizer use in Colombia and a drought in Brazil adversely affected coffee production in those countries, placing upward pressure on prices. The decline in unroasted coffee’s share of U.S. imports from Latin America has been partially offset by increased imports of roasted and freeze-dried coffee. During the 2003–23 period, U.S. import volumes of unroasted coffee from Latin America grew 1.5 percent annually. More information may be found in the USDA, Economic Research Service report Changes in U.S. Agricultural Imports from Latin America and the Caribbean.
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
In 2022, the USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) Eating and Health Module captured for the first time nationally representative data about the prevalence and frequency of U.S. residents who report shopping for groceries online. This data, collected by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey, revealed that about 1 in 5 shoppers (19.3 percent) purchased groceries online at least once in the previous 30 days from the time of the survey. Notably, ERS researchers performed a regression analysis to look at differences in the likelihood of online grocery shopping within the past month among a wide variety of characteristics, including race/ethnicity, gender, education level, households with/without children, and eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The largest disparity among any of these characteristics was the difference in an individual’s education level—from 9 percent for those with less than a high school diploma/GED to 26 percent for those with more than a bachelor’s degree. In other words, compared with people with less than a high school diploma or GED, those with more than a bachelor’s degree were 17 percentage points more likely to buy groceries online. These data are calculated from the regression analysis in the ERS report Who Shops For Groceries Online?, published in September 2024.
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
The United States has a total land area of 2.26 billion acres. In 2017, the latest year for which complete data are available, about 29 percent was grassland pasture and range, 28 percent was forest-use land, and 17 percent of the land area was cropland. Urban areas accounted for 3 percent of U.S. land, and a variety of special uses accounted for 14 percent. Special-use land, most of which is devoted to rural parks and wilderness areas, is largely concentrated in Alaska and other States in the western half of the United States, where there are larger amounts of public lands. Miscellaneous other uses made up the remaining 9 percent. The USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) maintains an inventory of all major uses of public and private land in the 50 States, which it updates every five years using data from various sources. This chart was drawn from the ERS’s most recent report Major Uses of Land in the United States, 2017, released in September 2024.
Monday, September 23, 2024
The number of farms with a Hispanic operator is about 84,000, a decline of about 2,800 farms since the last Census of Agriculture in 2017. A farm is defined as Hispanic-operated if at least one producer associated with it identifies as Spanish, Hispanic or Latino. Hispanic operators produced agricultural products on 37 million acres in 2022, which represents 4.2 percent of all U.S. land in farms. The total land in farms with Hispanic operators increased by 32 percent from 2002 to 2022. However, the average size for these farms has remained relatively stable at 441 acres in 2022, which is similar to the average farm size of 463 acres for all U.S. farms. For more details from the 2022 Census of Agriculture, see the USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service’s Census of Agriculture website. For more information on Hispanic farmers, see USDA, Economic Research Service’s publication An Overview of Farms Operated by Socially Disadvantaged, Women, and Limited Resource Farmers and Ranchers in the United States, February 2024.
Thursday, September 19, 2024
In 2023, full- and limited-service restaurants collectively accounted for more than two-thirds of U.S. food-away-from-home (FAFH) spending. Full-service establishments typically provide food services to customers who order and are served while seated and pay after eating, while in limited-service restaurants customers generally order and pay before eating and meals may be consumed on premises, taken out, or delivered to a specific location. Other FAFH outlets— hotels, schools, and drinking establishments, among others—accounted for the nearly remaining third of spending in 2023. In 1997, full-service restaurants received the largest share of food-away-from-home spending at 35.9 percent. However, that share began to decrease during the Great Recession (December 2007 to June 2009) and then sharply declined in early 2020 during the brief recession at the start of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Conversely, limited-service restaurant spending reached 34.6 percent in 2010, peaked at 37.6 percent in 2020, and received the largest share of food-away-from-home spending through 2023. The data for this chart come from the USDA, Economic Research Service’s Food Expenditure Series.
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
The bulk of U.S. imports fall into categories of consumer goods, capital goods, and industrial supplies. However, agricultural products account for an increasing share of total U.S. imports. From fiscal years (FY) 2004 to 2023, the value of U.S. imports of agricultural products rose an average 3.7 percent annually, adjusting for inflation, exceeding the overall rate of increase for total U.S. imports. Led by increases in processed food and beverages, horticultural products, and livestock products, agricultural imports are forecast to reach $204 billion in FY 2024 and a record $212 billion in FY 2025. Moreover, in 2023, agricultural imports accounted for 6.3 percent of the total value, up from 4.3 percent in 2004. U.S. consumers’ growing appetites for high-valued imported goods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, alcoholic beverages, and processed grain products have helped drive the rapid expansion of agricultural imports. Imported goods often include products that can’t easily be sourced in the United States, such as tropical products, off-season produce, or protected designated-origin products like Parmigiano Reggiano and Champagne. This chart is drawn from the Outlook for U.S. Agricultural Trade: August 2024 published by USDA’s Economic Research Service.