ERS Charts of Note

Thursday, August 8, 2024

U.S. Federal and State policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions have encouraged the production of biofuels, which are derived from crops, vegetable oils, and animal fats. One type of biofuel is biomass-based diesel, which includes mainly biodiesel and renewable diesel. With expansion of the Renewable Volume Obligations under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Renewable Fuels Standard program as well as State programs, the capacity to make renewable diesel has grown significantly, driving an increase in total biomass-based diesel production from 1.8 billion gallons in 2016 to 4.6 billion gallons in 2023. The use of animal fats (edible and inedible tallow, lard, and poultry fats) and greases, including used cooking oil (known as “UCO”), in producing biomass-based diesel increased to nearly 12 billion pounds in 2023. Use of animal fats, waste oils, and greases accounted for 37 percent of total feedstocks used for biomass-based diesel production in 2023, compared with 17 percent in 2020. The increasing share of animal fats, waste oils, and greases corresponds with a declining share of vegetable oils (soybean, canola, and corn) in biomass-based diesel production. The rising use of animal fats, waste oils, and grease (including used cooking oil) has boosted U.S. import demand for those products, especially used cooking oil. Used cooking oil imports reached more than 3 billion pounds in 2023, compared with 0.9 billion pounds in 2022. This chart is drawn from a Special Article in USDA, Economic Research Service’s Oil Crops Outlook: July 2024.

Wednesday, August 7, 2024

Commercial banks and the Farm Credit System together held about 80 percent of farm real estate debt during the last 11 years, making them the primary lenders to the U.S. agricultural sector. In 2022, the Farm Credit System—a nationwide network of borrower-owned lending institutions and specialized service organizations—provided almost half of all the real estate loans made to the sector, and commercial banks provided 32 percent of agricultural real estate loans. USDA’s Farm Service Agency provides loans directly to producers and in 2022 accounted for less than 4 percent of real estate loans. Other lenders include life insurance companies (7 percent), individuals and others (5 percent), and storage facility loans (less than 1 percent). Farmer Mac, which, like the Farm Credit System, is a Government-sponsored enterprise created by Congress to bring capital to agricultural markets, accounted for about 3 percent of total loans. This chart updates information in the USDA, Economic Research Service report Debt Use by U.S. Farm Businesses, 2012–2021, published in June 2024.

Tuesday, August 6, 2024

The nutritional quality of foods obtained from restaurants and fast food versus food prepared at home differs, with implications for meeting dietary recommendations. Researchers from USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) and the University of Georgia used the latest available national food consumption survey data, collected in 2017–18, to examine differences in diet patterns by food source based on density, which is the amount of food consumed per 1,000 calories. They compared average consumption densities with what would be needed to match the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommendations, assuming a 2,000-calorie daily intake. Foods from restaurants and fast-food places were lower in several nutrients—including fiber, calcium, and iron—and higher in saturated fat and sodium than food prepared at home in terms of density. Foods from restaurant and fast food places were also less dense in fruits, dairy, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and soy products and more dense in refined grains. On the other hand, restaurant foods were lower in added sugars and richer in vegetables, meats, poultry, eggs, and seafood relative to food prepared at home. Qualitative differences between foods from restaurants and fast-food places and food at home remain important considerations for policies and strategies designed to improve diet and health. This chart appears in the ERS report Dietary Quality by Food Source and Demographics in the United States, 1977–2018, published March 2023.

Monday, August 5, 2024

Researchers with USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) studied the land cover associated with 34,073 wind turbines installed on rural land between 2012 and 2020. Nationwide, they found that around 96 percent of wind turbines were installed on cropland (56 percent) or pasture-rangeland (40 percent). In the Midwest, 94 percent of wind turbines were installed on cropland. In the Plains, sites were almost equally split between cropland (49 percent) and pasture-rangeland (50 percent). In the West, 69 percent were located on pasture-rangeland and 27 percent on cropland. The Atlantic was the only region with a large share on nonagricultural land; 75 percent were located on forest land. However, only a small share of turbines was in the Atlantic (3 percent), and fewer than 1,000 turbines were on land categorized as forest. Read about the expansion of wind and solar in rural areas of the contiguous United States, the regional distribution of renewable energy development, and the land cover change associated with development in the ERS report Utility-Scale Solar and Wind Development in Rural Areas: Land Cover Change (2009–20), released in April 2024.

Thursday, August 1, 2024

Crop and livestock insurance payouts were substantially higher in the Great Plains and Mountain regions, according to data from the USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service’s 2022 Census of Agriculture. Over the period from 2017 to 2022, insurance payouts in these regions were mostly driven by losses from weather-related events. According to U.S. Federal Crop Insurance Program historical cause of loss data from USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA), producers in the Great Plains States of Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Oklahoma experienced substantial losses from drought over the period from 2017 to 2022. Of the acreage in that region covered by crop insurance, 58 percent received payouts because of drought loss. Excessive moisture also contributed to production challenges and associated payouts in the Great Plains, and 19 percent of insured acres received payouts because of that issue. In the Mountain Region—Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada—producers received drought-related payouts for 73 percent of covered acres. A combination of losses from drought and, separately, low temperatures resulted in higher insurance payments across the Nation in 2022. After adjusting for inflation, the national average crop and livestock insurance payment for 2022 was $52,819 per operation. This was up 41 percent from the $37,388 average payment per operation in the 2017 census but down 19 percent from the record high of $65,088 in 2012, underscoring the fluctuating dynamics of weather-related insurance payments. The number of operations receiving payment also rose in 2022, to 107,409 (6 percent of the U.S. total) from 103,060 operations (5 percent) in 2017. For more information, see the USDA, Economic Research Service topic page Crop Insurance at a Glance and the Farm Income and Wealth Statistics data product.

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest of USDA’s domestic food and nutrition assistance programs, accounting for about two-thirds of spending on these programs in recent years. Total SNAP spending increased following the declaration of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) public health emergency, peaking at $125.0 billion for the year in fiscal year (FY) 2021 and falling to $112.8 billion in FY 2023. Maximum benefit amounts were increased three times during this period in January 2021 (temporarily), October 2021 (with the revision of the Thrifty Food Plan), and October 2022 (an annual adjustment for inflation), with total regular benefit spending rising following each of these increases. SNAP households were also issued temporary emergency allotments to supplement their regular benefits beginning in March or April 2020, with a minimum emergency allotment amount being implemented in April 2021. Disaster supplement spending increased after each of these policy changes, but then fell off after emergency allotments ended following the February 2023 issuance. Total SNAP spending declined in FY 2023 by about 6 percent, as the drop in disaster supplement spending outweighed the higher spending from the 12.5-percent regular benefit adjustment. Together, these policy changes explain a large part of increased SNAP spending in the period after the pandemic’s onset in 2020. This chart is based on preliminary data released in December 2023 and appears in the USDA, Economic Research Service’s Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape: Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report, the Amber Waves article SNAP Spending Rose and Fell With Pandemic-Era Changes to Benefit Amounts, and was discussed in a recorded webinar.

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

In fiscal year (FY) 2022, children accounted for about 40 percent of all participants in USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), down from about 43 percent in FY 2019. In FY 2022, children younger than 5 made up nearly 12 percent of participants, while school-age children made up 28 percent. Adults ages 18-59 represented 42 percent of SNAP participants in FY 2022, similar to FY 2019. The share of the SNAP caseload for those age 60 and older grew to 18 percent in FY 2022 from about 16 percent in FY 2019. The caseload distribution shift over these 3 years from children to adults age 60 and older can mainly be attributed to an increase in adult SNAP participants rather than a decrease in children participants. While the estimated number of children participating in SNAP decreased to 15.5 million in FY 2022 from 15.9 million in FY 2019, the decrease was offset by larger increases in the number of adult participants. The estimated number of participating adults age 18-59 increased to 16.5 million in FY 2022 from 15.5 million in FY 2019, while the number of adults age 60 and over increased to 7.2 million from 5.8 million. FY 2022 is the latest year for which demographic data are available. The FY 2022 chart appears in the USDA, Economic Research Service’s Ag and Food Statistics: Charting the Essentials and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) topic page.

Monday, July 29, 2024

Respondents to the 2022 Census of Agriculture reported their land use and conservation practices, including their farmland acres that were drained by tile. Agricultural tile drainage, also called subsurface drainage, is a land use practice typically used to remove or distribute soil water and remove salts and other contaminants from soil subsurface. In 2022, 53.2 million acres of farmland used tile drainage. Imperial County, CA, had the largest county-level increase in tile-drained acreage from 2012 to 2022, with acreage increasing by 246,000 acres, constituting an 88-percent increase. There, tile drainage is used to manage soil salinity levels, since naturally occurring salts in irrigation water from the Colorado River can accumulate in soils and, unabated, threaten the long-term productivity of fields. The 2022 Census of Agriculture also shows that total cropland acreage in Imperial County increased along with the tile-drained acreage increase. Outside of Imperial County, 8 of the top 10 counties for growth in tile-drained acreage were in southern Minnesota and 1 was in Iowa. Tile drainage in the Midwest and Eastern United States, where most tile-drained acreage is located, is used to remove excess water from fields. For agricultural fields in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, tile drainage helps to ensure timely planting and allows for longer-season corn cultivars on fields that might otherwise be too wet to conduct field work in early spring. For more Census of Agriculture data, see the USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service’s Census of Agriculture page.

Thursday, July 25, 2024

Retail food prices increased 0.9 percent in the first 6 months of 2024, lower than the midyear rate in 2023 (4.8 percent) and the 20-year average for midyear inflation from 2003 to 2022 (1.9 percent). Prices increased the most for sugar and sweets (2.7 percent) so far in 2024, followed by fats and oils (2.1 percent), while prices declined for fish and seafood (-1.8 percent) and dairy products (-0.8 percent) compared with 2023. All food categories except for sugar and sweets and nonalcoholic beverages experienced lower-than-average price increases through the first half of 2024. Compared with recent years, price growth slowed across categories partly because of economy-wide factors, such as reductions in supply chain congestion and softening consumer demand for goods, although price trends differ by food category. For example, prices for cereals and bakery products showed minimal growth since mid-2023, following strong price increases throughout 2022 and the first half of 2023. In contrast, the midyear inflation rate for meats in 2024 exceeded its growth in the first half of 2023. Prices will continue to change during the remainder of 2024 and may affect the annual inflation rate. The USDA, Economic Research Service Food Price Outlook forecasts food-at-home prices will increase 1.0 percent in 2024, with a prediction interval of -0.1 to 2.1 percent, and the forecast was last updated July 25, 2024.

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

The United States has been the leading raw cotton exporter to the world virtually every year for more than 100 years. Leading export nation status was relinquished by the United States just a few times over the last century, most recently to Uzbekistan in the 1992/93 marketing year (August–July). U.S.-grown cotton was once principally used in domestic mills, but raw cotton exports became the dominant use in the early 2000s. Mills in other countries—particularly China—expanded textile and apparel product exports following developed countries’ phaseout of import quotas. Most U.S.-grown cotton is now destined for foreign mills and subject to increased competition from other cotton-producing countries. In recent years, Brazil has gradually become a major cotton export competitor, particularly as domestic cotton production expanded to the Center-West region of the country. On favorable conditions, Brazil’s 2023/24 cotton crop is estimated at a record 14.6 million bales, while U.S. production decreased because of drought in the Southwest. USDA’s June 2024 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report forecast Brazil’s 2023/24 cotton exports at 12.4 million bales, surpassing U.S. exports to become the largest global exporter. For 2024/25, the United States is projected to reclaim the role as top cotton exporter, as U.S. production is projected to rebound. This chart is drawn from the USDA, Economic Research Service Cotton and Wool Outlook: June 2024.

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Beef cow-calf farms—operations that raise beef calves at least through weaning—are numerous in the United States, and most are relatively small. Data from USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2022 Census of Agriculture indicated that 55 percent of U.S. farms with beef cows had fewer than 20 beef cows on December 31, 2022, while less than 1 percent had 1,000 or more beef cows. Farms with fewer than 20 beef cows held 9 percent of the national inventory of cows, and those with 1,000 cows or more held 10 percent of the inventory. Farms with 200 to 999 beef cows held 35 percent of the inventory. With a total of 29.2 million beef cows on 622,000 farms on December 31, 2022, the average beef farm had 47 cows. For more information, see the USDA, Economic Research Service report, Structure, Management Practices, and Production Costs of U.S. Beef Cow-Calf Farms, published in July 2023.

Monday, July 22, 2024

More than 70 percent of large-scale, commercial solar development in rural areas occurred on agricultural land, either cropland or pasture-range land. Of the 3,177 solar projects installed between 2012 and 2020, the largest share was on cropland (43 percent). Another 28 percent of solar projects were installed on pasture-range land. Among regions studied, the Midwest had the highest share of solar installations on cropland at 70 percent, followed by the Atlantic at 43 percent and South at 37 percent. In the West and Plains, installations occurred mostly on pasture-range at 60 and 65 percent, respectively. The Atlantic region had the highest share of solar sites on forest land at 23 percent, while the Atlantic and South both had the highest share of solar installations on developed land at 6 percent. Sites in the South were the most diverse of all regions, with 37 percent categorized cropland, 17 percent as forest, 19 percent as pasture-range, and 21 percent categorized as other. Read about the expansion of solar and wind in rural areas of the contiguous United States in the USDA, Economic Research Service report Utility-Scale Solar and Wind Development in Rural Areas: Land Cover Change (2009–20), released in May 2024.

Friday, July 19, 2024

Errata: On July 22, 2024, the note that accompanied the chart was revised to improve clarity. No text or data were affected.

The USDA, National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS) 2022 Census of Agriculture shows that producer expenditures on cash rents were heavily concentrated in the upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and California’s Central Valley. In total, producers spent $27.3 billion on cash rent expenses in 2022, or 6.4 percent of total production expenses. This represents a nearly 10-percent increase in cash rents from the 2017 Agricultural Census, after adjusting for inflation. Many farmers rent farmland from landowners for a cash payment. This cash rent reflects the economic returns to land from farming. Cash rent per acre of land is influenced by several factors, such as cash receipts, government payments, land quality, and financing constraints. For more information, see the NASS 2022 Census of Agriculture website. For more information on how farmland cash rental rates vary across regions, see the USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) Land Use, Land Value & Tenure topic page. See also the NASS publication Tenure, Ownership, and Transition of Agricultural Lands and the ERS report Farmland Values, Land Ownership, and Returns to Farmland, 2000-2016.

Thursday, July 18, 2024

Production of ice cream in the United States totaled 1.3 billion gallons in 2023. While most frozen dairy product output is regular ice cream, consumer demand for lower-fat and lower-sugar options has increased production share and volume of low-fat and nonfat varieties over time. Average annual production of regular ice cream decreased after peaking in 2002 then increased again in 2019–23, while production of low-fat and nonfat ice cream increased during 2019–23 in part because of elevated ice cream demand during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In 2019–23, low-fat and nonfat ice cream production accounted for more than 35 percent of the total volume of ice cream churned in the United States, compared with 29 percent in 1999–2003. Production of frozen dairy treats such as sherbet and frozen yogurt remains relatively low by comparison. In aggregate, production of ice cream and other frozen dairy products have trended lower, declining from 1.5 billion gallons annually in 1999–2003 to 1.4 billion gallons in 2019–23. This decrease is in line with reduced deliveries of caloric sweeteners (an indicator of consumption of refined sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, among others) which peaked in 1999, reflecting shifting consumer preferences. This chart is drawn from Dairy Data and Sugar and Sweeteners Yearbook Tables, published by USDA, Economic Research Service.

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Cash-renters and owner-operators adopt cover crops at rates higher than share-renters. Researchers with USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) explored whether adopting cover crops (a crop grown between two commodity or forage crops but unharvested/terminated with the intention of improving soil health) differed between farmers who owned the land they farmed and those who were renters, whether under a cash- or share-rent agreement. Using data from USDA’s Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), researchers calculated national-level statistics for five crops. They found that owner-operated cotton fields had the highest rates of cover crop adoption for owned land, with 22 percent of owner-operated cotton fields having cover crops in 2019. Owner-operated fields nominally led cash-rented fields in cover cropping for cotton, corn, and sorghum, but trailed cash-rented fields for soybeans and barley. Owner-operated fields exceeded share-rented fields in cover crop adoption for all five commodity crops surveyed. About 40 percent of farmland in the contiguous 48 States is rented. Information on the use of various rental agreements, as well as conservation tillage and structural practice adoption, can be found in the ERS report Farmland Rental and Conservation Practice Adoption, published in March 2024.

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

USDA’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) has provided supplemental food packages, nutrition education, breastfeeding support, and health care referrals at no cost to low-income pregnant and postpartum women, infants younger than 1 year old, and children 1 to 5 years old who are at nutritional risk since 1974. More than half of WIC participants are children (55.0 percent), followed by women (22.6 percent), and infants (22.4 percent). Total participation in WIC increased for the first time in more than a decade in fiscal year (FY) 2022, and this increase continued in FY 2023. Participation averaged 6.57 million people a month in FY 2023, a 5-percent increase from 6.26 million in FY 2022. This was the second increase in overall participation since the record high of 9.18 million people in FY 2010 and resulted from increased numbers of participants in all three groups (women, infants, and children). FY 2023 was the first year since 2009 that the number of infants participating in WIC increased. This chart appears on the WIC Program topic page and in the USDA, Economic Research Service’s Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape: Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report, released June 12, 2024, and was discussed in a recorded webinar.

Thursday, July 11, 2024

Food spending in the United States reached an all-time high in 2023. However, accounting for food price inflation and population growth reveals a nuanced narrative over time. Even after adjusting for inflation (known as constant terms), per capita food-away-from-home (FAFH) spending rebounded after a 15.6-percent drop in 2020 with an average annual increase of 10 percent since 2021. This trend resulted in an 11.9-percent increase in FAFH spending in 2023 compared with 2019, outpacing prepandemic trends. In contrast, constant per capita food-at-home (FAH) spending declined 2.3 percent in 2022 and 3.1 percent in 2023, following stable annual increases averaging 2.8 percent from 2016 to 2021. This chart is drawn from USDA, Economic Research Service’s Food Expenditure Series data product, updated in June 2024, and Interactive Charts: Food Expenditures, updated in September 2023.

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

In the United States, the share of harvested acres dedicated to vegetables intended for sale in the processing market varies widely by crop. Some vegetables lend themselves readily to processing, such as tomatoes for sauces and canning. Others are largely destined for the fresh market and have only a small percentage processed, such as broccoli. Using data from the 2022 Census of Agriculture, the share of harvested acres for processing is estimated to range from around 90 percent for green peas and horseradish to less than 5 percent for cauliflower and broccoli. More than half of harvested acres for potatoes (56 percent) and sweet corn (55 percent)—the top two vegetables by acres harvested—was devoted to processing production. Processing accounted for 39 percent of total melon, vegetable, potato, and sweet potato harvested area in 2022 (excluding mushrooms and pulse crops), down from 44 percent at the 2012 census. The greatest total number of harvested acres devoted to processing was for potatoes (600,169 acres), followed by sweet corn (258,781 acres) and tomatoes (248,318 acres). The number of acres of vegetables, potatoes, and melons harvested by U.S. growers has decreased since the 2007 census. With fresh-market acreage relatively flat, the declines have been concentrated in processing acreage. This chart is based on the USDA, Economic Research Service Vegetables and Pulses Outlook Report released April 2024.

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

USDA’s temporary Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program issued $70.9 billion in benefits from its inception in March 2020 through September 2023. Federal legislation passed in March 2020 authorized USDA to create the P-EBT program at the onset of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in response to disruptions to onsite instruction at schools and the operation of the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program. The P-EBT program provided benefits to qualified households with children in the 50 States, Washington, DC, and U.S. territories for the value of school meals that were forgone because of pandemic-related disruptions. These benefits could be used to help pay for groceries at retailers authorized to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Initially, P-EBT program eligibility was limited to households with school-aged children eligible for free or reduced-price school meals (those with incomes up to 185 percent of the Federal poverty line). Subsequent legislation increased the amount qualifying households received and expanded the program to include more children (such as some households with children not yet enrolled in school) and to cover the summer months when schools typically are closed for instruction. Legislation also extended the program’s operations through September 2023. P-EBT benefits were distributed at different times, depending on pandemic-related disruptions to in-person instruction at schools and the timeliness of when States and territories were able to issue benefits. This chart appears in the USDA, Economic Research Service’s The Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape: Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report and Amber Waves article, USDA’s Temporary Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) Program Issued $70.9 Billion in Benefits From 2020 to 2023, and was discussed in a recorded webinar.

Monday, July 8, 2024

Not all farms use debt to finance their operations, but of those that do, the majority used commercial banks. Researchers with USDA, Economic Research Service examined direct loans reported from five different sources in 2022: the Farm Credit System, USDA Farm Service Agency, commercial banks, trade credit, and other lenders. More than half of each farm type reported loans owed to a commercial bank. Among borrowers, small family farms using debt had the highest proportion receiving financing through other lenders (28 percent). Among all the lending sources, the Farm Service Agency serviced between 8 and 10 percent of farms with loans, making it the least likely to provide a direct loan. Not reflected, however, are actions by the Farm Service Agency to provide a loan guarantee for some of those operations reporting loans from commercial banks and the Farm Credit System. This chart appears in America’s Farms and Ranches at a Glance, published December 2023.