ERS Charts of Note
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Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Water is withdrawn from surface and groundwater sources for agricultural, industrial and municipal use. Farmers in the United States source water for irrigation by diverting it from on-farm surface water bodies like rivers or streams, directly pumping groundwater, or receiving water via the canals and ditches of water delivery irrigation organizations. In the four regions of the western United States (consisting of the Northwest (Idaho, Oregon, and Washington), Pacific (California and Nevada), Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah), and Eastern Rockies (Colorado, Montana, Wyoming) regions) irrigation water delivery organizations accounted for almost 60 percent of the water that is withdrawn for all uses in an average year. In contrast, in the High Plains (Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas) and Southeast (Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina), where surface and ground water resources for irrigation are available without large-scale coordination, these organizations conveyed water that amounted to about 3 percent of all water withdrawn in an average year. Irrigation water delivery organizations play a particularly large role in the Southwest, where in 2019 they conveyed 11 million acre-feet of water, which is 73 percent of the 15 million acre-feet withdrawn for all uses in an average year. This chart appears in the ERS report Irrigation Organizations: Water Inflows and Outflows, published in August 2023.
Thursday, August 31, 2023
The USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) forecasts inflation-adjusted U.S. net cash farm income (NCFI) to decrease by $60.5 billion (28.9 percent) from 2022 to $148.6 billion in 2023. Similarly, U.S. net farm income (NFI) is forecast to fall by $48.0 billion (25.4 percent) from 2022 to $141.3 billion in 2023. NCFI is calculated as gross cash income minus cash expenses. NFI is a broader measure of farm sector profitability that incorporates noncash items including changes in inventories, economic depreciation, and gross imputed rental income. The projected decreases in 2023 come after both NCFI and NFI reached all-time highs in 2022. NCFI reached $209.1 billion in 2022, and NFI reached $189.3 billion. Underlying these forecasts, cash receipts for farm commodities are projected to fall by $41.4 billion (7.5 percent) from 2022 to $513.6 billion in 2023. This includes forecasted declines of $13.9 billion (23.6 percent) in milk receipts and $11.6 billion (12.6 percent) in corn receipts. In addition, production expenses are expected to increase by $14.8 billion (3.3 percent) to $458.0 billion in 2023. Finally, direct Government payments to farmers are projected to fall by $3.5 billion (21.6 percent) from 2022 to $12.6 billion in 2023, because of lower supplemental and ad hoc disaster assistance. Find additional information and analysis on the USDA, ERS’ topic page Highlights from the Farm Income Forecast, reflecting data released on August 31, 2023.
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
After reaching historic highs in May 2022, U.S. and global wheat prices have since cooled as supply concerns for many key wheat exporters have abated. Wheat export prices for the United States, Russia, and France in July 2023 are all well below the peaks observed in May 2022 as an effect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ample wheat supplies expected in the 2023/24 marketing year (July–June) in the European Union, of which France is a member, and Russia are contributing to low prices for those exporters. Markets recently reacted to the July 17 expiration of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which had sustained Ukraine’s exports through the Black Sea for nearly a year. Russia’s subsequent attacks on Ukraine’s port infrastructure were further reflected in global wheat prices. However, Ukraine is expected to continue shipping some commodities via alternative routes, so price changes were relatively minimal compared with more extreme swings at the start of the conflict. Prices for other suppliers, such as France, were up slightly from May 2023 but 27 percent lower than in July 2022. U.S. hard red winter wheat export prices decreased 10 percent in July 2023 from July 2022 and were 34 percent lower from May 2022. Even so, they are higher compared with other key exporters, partly driven by ongoing drought in major U.S. growing regions. This chart is drawn from the USDA, Economic Research Service Wheat Outlook, August 2023.
Tuesday, August 29, 2023
The majority of potatoes in the United States are now sold in processed forms such as frozen, chipped, dehydrated, or canned. With the introduction of french fries as a key side dish in quick-service restaurants, the share of potatoes that go into frozen products has risen in each decade since 1979. As a result, almost half of all potatoes going into food in the United States are now used to create frozen products—most of which are french fries. Meanwhile, the share of potatoes used as fresh table potatoes has declined decade by decade. Even the favorable trend in french fries has seen some bumps along the way. After peaking in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the long-run upward trend in frozen potato availability slowed as many consumers embraced low-carb diets or sought alternative food choices and cuisines. However, by the mid-2010s, frozen potato availability once again turned upward, with per capita availability during the pandemic-influenced 2019–21 period up 8 percent from a decade earlier (2009–11). According to industry data and USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) research in the early 2000s, about 90 percent of frozen french fries move through various food service venues. Quick-service restaurants alone account for about two-thirds of french fry usage. This chart is drawn from the ERS data product Vegetables and Pulses Yearbook Tables.
Monday, August 28, 2023
Adult obesity rates varied widely among Census regions of the United States before the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. During the pandemic, regional obesity rates grew further apart. From 2019 to March 2020, adult obesity rates ranged from a low of 36.7 percent in the West to the highest rate at 43.1 percent in the South, a 6.4-percentage point difference. The regional differences expanded to 7.2 percentage points during the first year of the pandemic, from a low of 37.4 percent in the Northeast to a high of 44.6 percent in the Midwest. The only region that experienced a decline in obesity rates during the first year of the pandemic was the Northeast. The West had the lowest adult obesity rate before the pandemic but experienced the largest increase of any region during the first year of the pandemic, a 2.8-percentage point increase. The obesity rate increase in the West was nearly twice the increase in the South, which had the highest regional obesity rate before the pandemic. The Midwest had the second-highest rate before the pandemic but increased nearly twice as much as the South, emerging as the region with the highest obesity rate during the first year of the pandemic, ending in March 2021. This chart appears in the USDA, Economic Research Service COVID-19 Working Paper: Obesity Prevalence Among U.S. Adult Subpopulations During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Thursday, August 24, 2023
Use of aerial imagery provided by aircraft, drones, and satellites remains limited on U.S. farms. USDA has tracked adoption of many agricultural production technologies through its annual Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) of U.S. farms. Farmers using drones and aircraft can survey large stretches of farm and ranch land. Aerial imagery helps identify land features or vegetation patterns that are more easily visible from above and thus aids in crop mapping, livestock monitoring, land surveying, crop spraying, and crop dusting. According to the most recent data for various row crops, aerial imagery was used on 7.0 percent of acres planted to corn in 2016 and 9.8 percent for soybeans in 2018. The adoption rate on winter wheat-planted acreage in 2017 was 3.5 percent, with comparable adoption in 2019 on cotton acres (2.8 percent) and sorghum (4.6 percent). For context, in 2016, these adoption rates were lower than those of related technologies like yield maps (43.7 percent) and soil maps (21.5 percent), which provide visualizations of how yields and soil properties vary within and across fields. The ongoing digitalization of U.S. agriculture presents considerable opportunities for improvement in farmers’ productivity, environmental footprint, and risk management. This chart appears in the USDA, Economic Research Service report Precision Agriculture in the Digital Era: Recent Adoption on U.S. Farms, published in February 2023.
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is designed to expand during economic downturns. SNAP participation and inflation-adjusted spending grew each year from fiscal year (FY) 2007–13 following the Great Recession and from FY 2019–21 following the recession caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, aspects of program growth differed between these periods. Average monthly participation increased faster, for longer, and by a greater amount following the Great Recession than it did after the COVID-19 recession, peaking at 47.6 million participants in FY 2013. Although participation grew less from FY 2019–21, inflation-adjusted spending rose more quickly given the shorter time span, from $67.5 billion in FY 2019 to $120.8 billion in FY 2021 (an average 39.5-percent increase per year). Emergency allotments were central to SNAP spending growth during the pandemic. Emergency allotments were issued as monthly supplements in response to the pandemic, bringing all recipients’ benefits to the maximum allowed each month beginning in 2020 (and later providing a minimum of $95 per month for all recipients). In FY 2021, emergency allotments and other disaster supplements accounted for $39.2 billion, almost a third of total spending. Excluding spending on emergency allotments and other disaster supplements, total spending was only $81.6 billion in FY 2021, about $15 billion less than FY 2013 spending, adjusting for inflation. Emergency allotments ended in 17 States over FY 2021–22 and in the remainder of States in early 2023. This chart appears in the USDA, Economic Research Service’s Amber Waves article, U.S. Food and Nutrition Assistance Programs Continued To Respond to Economic and Public Health Conditions in Fiscal Year 2022, released August 2023.
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
While Georgia is on many consumers’ minds when it comes to fresh, juicy peaches, California is by far the largest peach-producing State in the United States. In 2022, California’s harvest yielded 475,000 tons of fruit, with South Carolina a distant second at 67,400 tons, and Georgia in third place with production at 24,800 tons. California has been the long-time leading producer both for freestone peaches for the fresh market and clingstone peaches for processing. However, the State’s peach production has been trending lower for almost two decades, contributing to an overall drop in U.S. peach production. Total production in the United States in 2022 was estimated at 625,680 tons, 8 percent smaller than the crop in 2019. In 2022, California’s peach harvest was about 5 percent smaller than in 2019 and nearly 27 percent lower than 10 years earlier. Latest reports from USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service forecast 2023 peach production to be 13 percent lower than in 2022. Georgia and South Carolina peaches were beset with challenging weather conditions that included unseasonably warm weather in late winter followed by late spring cold snaps. This chart first appeared in the USDA, Economic Research Service Fruit and Tree Nut Outlook, published in September 2022, and has been updated with recent data.
Monday, August 21, 2023
Irrigation water delivery organizations play a key role in delivering water to farms, ranches, and nonagricultural users in the United States. Results from the 2019 Survey of Irrigation Organizations (SIO) show that 2,477 organizations in western regions were directly involved in delivering water to farms. About 70 percent of the water withdrawn from freshwater sources for irrigation in the western regions of the United States is managed by irrigation water delivery organizations. In most regions, organizations that allow transfers internally between their users were more common than organizations engaging in external trades with other entities. Some of these organizations trade water by leasing it to or from other irrigation organizations, municipalities, environmental groups, or other interested parties. In the Pacific region, 17 percent of organizations engage in these external leases, compared to between 3 and 7 percent in other regions in the western United States. Water exchanges may also occur internally between water users within a delivery organization’s own water delivery system, if allowed by the organization. Internal transfers between users in an organization occurred in 5 percent of organizations in the Pacific and between 8 and 11 percent of organizations in other regions of the western United States. This chart appears in the USDA Economic Research Service publication Irrigation Organizations: Water Inflows and Outflows, published in August 2023.
Thursday, August 17, 2023
In the United States, most cow-calf operations are relatively small and have fewer than 50 cows though a few very large operations (with more than 1,000 cows) can be found. On cow-calf farms, calves are birthed, raised, and weaned on site. While some calves remain on the farm until they reach slaughter weight, most are either moved directly to feedlots after weaning or retained on-farm for additional weight gain before being sold to feedlots. Unlike many other animal production operations, cow-calf farms generally do not require a major upfront investment in capital assets specific to cow-calf production, such as housing. The combination of relatively lower cow-calf specific startup costs and pasture as a primary source of feed has resulted in a variety of operation sizes on a range of land types for both full- and part-time farmers. Data from USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service, Census of Agriculture indicate that between 1997 and 2017, most cow-calf operations remained small. In 2017, 54 percent of farms with beef cows had fewer than 20 cows, slightly down from 1997. However, across the two decades, the overall number of cow-calf operations in the United States decreased by 19 percent, while the average herd size of operations grew. These changes in farm number and herd size, while notable, have not been as significant as industry shifts in hog and dairy production. This chart is drawn from the USDA, Economic Research Service report Structure, Management Practices, and Production Costs of U.S. Beef Cow-Calf Farms, published in July 2023.
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
In early 2020, shortly after the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was declared in the United States, obesity was identified as a risk factor for medical complications and death from the virus. Broad efforts to contain COVID-19 included travel, work, and social restrictions. Such behavioral adjustments disrupted the dietary and activity patterns of U.S. adults. Data from Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) indicate the percentage of adults with obesity was 40.7 percent in early 2020. One year later, this rate grew by 1.8 percentage points to 42.5 percent. There was not an immediate, substantial increase when the pandemic began. Rather, the obesity rate was statistically indistinguishable from the prepandemic prevalence during the first 3 months of the pandemic (March–May 2020) at 40.8 percent. The next three time periods saw statistically significant increases relative to the baseline prepandemic period. Obesity prevalence increased 1.5 percentage points to 42.2 percent in the June–August 2020 period compared with the prepandemic prevalence. Obesity prevalence slightly increased again to 42.5 percent in September–November 2020 and remained at this level through March 2021. The total obesity rate increase from March 2020 to March 2021 was more than triple the average yearly growth rate of 0.5 percentage points in the preceding decade, 2011–2019. This chart appears in the USDA, Economic Research Service COVID-19 Working Paper: Obesity Prevalence Among U.S. Adult Subpopulations During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Tuesday, August 15, 2023
Farmers use variable rate technologies (VRT) to control the amount of farm inputs—such as seed, fertilizer, and chemicals—applied as farm machinery moves across a field. With more precise control of inputs, farmers can make more efficient applications that might lower production costs or reduce environmental impacts. Data from USDA’s Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) show that initial adoption of VRT in the late 1990s and early 2000s was sluggish, remaining below 10 percent of planted acres for several field crops. However, adoption rates for corn and cotton have increased markedly over the last decade. The VRT adoption rate for corn stood at 37.4 percent of planted acres in 2016, up from 11.5 percent in 2005. Cotton acreage using VRT showed a similar increase, rising from 5.4 percent in 2007 to 22.7 percent in 2019. Recent VRT adoption rates across other crops included 13.9 percent for sorghum in 2019, 18.8 percent of winter wheat planted acres in 2017, and 25.3 percent of soybean-planted acres in 2018. VRT adoption follows a pattern common to other precision technologies: higher adoption by large farms and lower adoption among smaller farms, in part because larger farms can spread the fixed costs of adoption over greater production amounts. This chart and more information on the topic appear in the USDA, Economic Research Service report Precision Agriculture in the Digital Era: Recent Adoption on U.S. Farms, published in February 2023.
Monday, August 14, 2023
Errata: On August 16, this chart was updated with the correct year for when a similar level of income was previously spent on food. No other data were affected.U.S. consumers spent an average of 11.3 percent of their disposable personal income (DPI) on food in 2022, a level not observed since 1991. DPI is the amount of money U.S. consumers have left to spend or save after paying taxes. Consumers spent 5.62 percent of their incomes on food at supermarkets, convenience stores, warehouse club stores, supercenters, and other retailers (food at home) in 2022 and 5.64 percent on food at restaurants, fast-food establishments, schools, and other places offering food away from home. In 2022, the share of DPI spent on total food had the sharpest annual increase (12.7 percent). This followed an 8.2-percent decline, the sharpest annual drop in total food spending since 1967, during the first year of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. The recent volatility in spending was driven by consumers’ sudden drop in eating out at the beginning of the pandemic followed by a return to food-away-from-home purchases as pandemic-related restrictions and concerns eased. The chart is drawn from USDA, Economic Research Service’s Ag and Food Statistics: Charting the Essentials and Food Expenditure Series data product, updated July 2023.
Thursday, August 10, 2023
Irrigation water delivery organizations are entities such as irrigation districts and ditch companies that supply farmers, ranchers, and other users with water. These organizations draw water from several different sources. Water from Federal water projects and direct diversions from surface water bodies make up the majority of inflows to these organizations. Yet there is substantial variation across organizations based on size. Large water delivery organizations, (which supply water to more than 10,000 acres) tend to contract water from Federal water storage facilities rather than draw from natural surface sources such as rivers. However, small water delivery organizations (supporting less than 1,000 acres) draw a much higher proportion of their water inflows from surface sources. These differences reflect the historical development of irrigation organizations, with larger organizations developing in tandem with or as part of top-down approaches to provide water for irrigation, while small organizations developed from the ground up as small private ventures or community-led efforts. This chart appears in the USDA Economic Research Service publication Irrigation Organizations: Water Inflows and Outflows, published in August 2023.
Wednesday, August 9, 2023
The California-grown almonds in your trail mix or almond milk were likely made possible through the pollination services provided by honey bees. In the United States, all commercially grown almonds—a crop worth more than $5 billion in 2021—are grown in California. Almond blossoms largely require insects for pollination, and honey bees are widely used to provide this yield-supporting service. While some almond growers maintain their own honey bee colonies, many opt to secure pollination services by renting hives from beekeepers. Beekeepers often transport their commercial honey bee colonies more than 1,000 miles as part of an annual journey that typically begins in the Northern Great Plains—which includes North and South Dakota, Montana, and Minnesota—and proceeds to California and beyond. Driven by the timing of the almond bloom, between July 1, 2017, and January 1, 2018, an estimated 384,600 bee colonies were transported into California from the Northern Great Plains. Colonies also traveled from nearby areas of the West and Pacific Northwest, while still other colonies came from as far away as the Northeast and Southeast. Some beekeepers reported moving honey bee colonies more than 2,000 miles to pollinate almonds. After pollinating almonds and other crops in the region, many beekeepers later return to the Great Northern Plains to support colony recuperation and honey production. This chart first appeared in the USDA, Economic Research Service report, Honey Bees on the Move: From Pollination to Honey Production and Back, June 2021.
Tuesday, August 8, 2023
USDA’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides 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. More than half of WIC participants are children (54.8 percent), followed by infants (22.8 percent) and women (22.4 percent). Total participation in WIC increased for the first time in more than a decade in fiscal year (FY) 2022. Participation averaged 6.26 million people a month, up from 6.24 million a month in FY 2021. This was the first increase in overall participation since the record high 9.18 million in FY 2010 and resulted from increased numbers of women and children participants. Women participants increased by 1.5 percent in FY 2022 after declining for the previous 12 fiscal years, whereas infant participants continued to decline. Declines in the number of births in the United States, beginning in 2008, may be a factor in drops in infant participation. Child participation increased in FY 2022 for the second consecutive fiscal year. Administrative flexibilities put in place in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic may have helped support participation, especially among children. Starting in FY 2020 and continuing through FY 2022, USDA waivers temporarily allowed State agencies to conduct remote certifications for applicants and recertifications for WIC participants and to extend certification periods for certain WIC participants by up to 3 months. This chart appears in the USDA, Economic Research Service’s Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape: Fiscal Year 2022 Annual Report, released June 21, 2023.
Monday, August 7, 2023
Genetically modified (GM) varieties of corn, soybeans, and cotton were introduced in the United States in 1996, and they became the dominant seed choice among farmers within a few years. Later, GM varieties were widely adopted for canola and sugar beets. By 2020 (the most recent year for which data are available), about 55 percent of the total harvested cropland in the United States was grown with varieties having at least one GM trait. The most prevalent GM traits are herbicide tolerance and insect resistance. Private seed companies lead the development of GM traits—a shift away from public institutions—stimulated by judicial rulings that created protections for intellectual property in crop genetics and other biological inventions. Advances in biotechnology provided a new means of improving crops by allowing genes with specific, inheritable traits to be transferred to distant crop varieties. GM seed use also is catching on in alfalfa, potatoes, papaya, squash, and apples. This chart appears in the USDA, Economic Research Service report Concentration and Competition in U.S. Agribusiness, published in June 2023.
Thursday, August 3, 2023
If you are reaching for a slice of melon to cool off from the summer heat, chances are watermelon is your first choice. Since 2000, watermelon has gained a larger share of U.S. melon availability (calculated by adding production and import volumes and then subtracting exports). In 2022, watermelon accounted for more than half of U.S. melon availability, double the share of every other melon variety combined. An estimated 21.1 pounds of melons were available in 2022 for each U.S. consumer to eat, with watermelon accounting for 14.1 pounds, cantaloupe for 5.3 pounds, honeydew for 1.6 pounds, and all other melons making up the remaining slice. Increases in watermelon availability, by both volume and share, correspond with overall growth in melon imports, which first served to bridge supply gaps during nongrowing seasons in the United States. Most of the melons consumed in the United States are grown domestically, but imports are capturing a growing share of the fresh melon market. Since the 1980s, imports have increased from an average share of less than 10 percent to almost 40 percent over the last 5 years. U.S. imports of watermelons now come mostly from Mexico, with increasing volumes from Guatemala and Honduras. Cantaloupe and honeydew imports ship mostly from Guatemala and Honduras, with lower volumes from Mexico. This chart first appeared in the USDA, Economic Research Service’s Fruit and Tree Nuts Outlook, published in March 2023.
Wednesday, August 2, 2023
USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) has developed the Road Ruggedness Scale (RRS) to aid in understanding the unique role of rugged terrain as both a benefit and hindrance to the well-being of communities and their residents. The RRS has five categories based on changes in elevation along roads within census tracts (the small geographic areas used to collect population data). The census tracts are classified as: 1–level, 2–nearly level, 3–slightly rugged, 4–moderately rugged, or 5–highly rugged. Most census tracts have very little topographic variation, with 65.6 percent classified as level in the RRS. The next largest category is nearly level, with 22.4 percent of census tracts. The remaining 12.0 percent of census tracts are classified as slightly to highly rugged, and only 4.4 percent are classified as moderately or highly rugged. The RRS helps to identify landscape characteristics that may present an impediment to settlement and travel, such as the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Mountain System, the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains, and the Black Hills. These geologic features can make it difficult for people living in rugged areas to access services. They can also attract tourists and prospective residents who prefer rugged terrain or are interested in outdoor activities. To our knowledge, the RRS is the first roads-only, detailed ruggedness measure with full nationwide coverage for the United States. It has the potential to contribute to research on links between the geography and well-being of individuals, especially those living in rural areas, as well as to other research and policy applications. This chart appears in the ERS report Characterizing Rugged Terrain in the United States, published in August 2023. The Road Ruggedness Scale data product published in September 2023.
Tuesday, August 1, 2023
During the past 20 years, households with children headed by a single female consistently showed higher average rates of food pantry use than other household types, including male-headed households with children and married couple households with children. The cost of childcare, education, healthcare, housing, and other expenses can strain a family’s budget, leaving less income available for food purchases. This financial strain may lead parents to seek assistance from food pantries to meet their families’ food needs. Food pantries, often affiliated with faith-based organizations, typically provide free food for people to take home and prepare. The use of food pantries increased in 2009 during the end of the Great Recession and increased in 2020 during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with average rates increasing more than any previous year. In 2021, 7 percent of households with children used food pantries at some point during the year, compared with 5.6 percent of all households. Among households with children, 4.4 percent of married-couple households used food pantries, while 13.8 percent of single female-headed households and 8 percent of single male-headed households used them. Food pantry use among households with children headed by females fluctuated from 9.4 percent in 2001 to 18.3 percent in 2020. The data for this chart come from the USDA, Economic Research Service’s 2001-2021 annual reports on Household Food Security in the United States. The release of the 2022 Household Food Security in the United States report and corresponding statistical supplement is scheduled for October 25, 2023, because of updates to the survey instrument implemented in 2022.