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, November 6, 2024
The 2022 Census of Agriculture shows that around 84,000 farms operated by a producer with military service engage in cattle farming (29 percent), making it the most common commodity specialization among those with military service. It is followed closely by “other crop farming” with 79,000 operations (27 percent). “Other animal production” ranks third with approximately 59,000 farms, while operations specializing in “oilseed and grain” and “specialty crops” are less common, with around 37,000 and 30,000 farms respectively. In 2022, there were 289,372 farms operated by at least one producer with current or prior military service, which represents about 15 percent of all farm operations. These farms were mostly small, with an average farm size of 373 acres, compared with the overall U.S. average farm size of 463 acres. Information about farm businesses can be found in the USDA, Economic Research Service report America’s Farms and Ranches at a Glance, 2023 edition.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Over time, the quality of agricultural pesticides has improved. Modern pesticides (which include herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides) have higher potency, persistence, toxicity, and absorption rates compared with products available in the past. Researchers with USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) track the quantities of pesticides used in agriculture production and adjust them for quality changes as part of calculating the productivity of the industry. Using 1948 as a starting point, the quantities of quality-adjusted and non-adjusted pesticides used were 15 times and 8 times, respectively, their 1948 levels. Pesticide use over time has increased partially because of a relative fall in pesticide prices compared to other inputs that prompted producers to increase pesticide use, and a change in the mix of crops, particularly the substantial increase in corn and soybean acreage that require more pesticides. Other factors that have driven fluctuations in pesticide use include the widespread use of genetically engineered crops that are insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant; the eradication of the boll weevil, which helped reduce pesticide use in cotton-growing areas; and increased awareness of environmental impacts of pesticide use. For more on U.S. agricultural productivity trends, see the ERS topic page Agricultural Research and Productivity and the ERS data product Agricultural Productivity in the U.S. This chart updates one found in the ERS report Measurement of Output, Inputs, and Total Factor Productivity in U.S. Agricultural Productivity Accounts, published in August 2024.
Monday, October 28, 2024
About 40 percent of U.S. farmers worked 200 or more days off the farm in 2022, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture. The majority—93.2 percent—of the 3,078 U.S. counties for which data were reported had at least 30 percent of producers working 200 days or more off the farm. Further, 83 counties (2.7 percent) had at least 50 percent of producers working off farm 200 days or more. Counties with relatively few producers working 200 days or more off farm were scattered across the country, with many in remote areas of the western United States, and several located in metro areas. The majority of U.S. farm operations have more than one producer engaged in decisions or duties related to the farm business, which would increase the time available for off-farm work for any single producer. For farms with two producers, 41 percent of producers worked off farm 200 days or more, with a similar portion of producers on farms with either three or four producers doing so. In comparison, 35 percent of producers on farms with only one producer did so. Off-farm work is a significant source of income for most farm households and can additionally provide health and retirement benefits. According to Agricultural Resource Management Survey data, more than half of family farms did not turn a profit in 2022, and 84 percent of farm households earned at least half their total income from off-farm sources. For more details from the 2022 Census of Agriculture, see the USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service’s Census of Agriculture website. Information on producers and households can be found on the USDA, Economic Research Service’s topic page Farm Household Well-being.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
From 1948 to 2021, U.S. agricultural output grew at an average annual rate of 1.46 percent. The largest contributor to this growth came from improvement in total factor productivity, which measures changes in the efficiency with which inputs are transformed into outputs. The major drivers of such productivity growth include innovations in animal and crop genetics, improvements in operation management, and changing farm sector structure. Over seven decades, total factor productivity added an annual average of 1.49 percentage points to the output growth rate. Intermediate inputs, such as agricultural chemicals, energy, purchased services, feed, and seed, added 0.46 percentage point. The positive contributions of intermediate inputs and total factor productivity were partially offset by reductions in capital (made up mostly of land) and labor inputs. The contribution to the output growth rate of labor use decline was -0.42 percentage point, and that of capital inputs (including land) reduction was -0.07 percentage point, accounting for a combined decrease of 0.49 percentage point. That decrease slightly exceeded the positive contribution from intermediate inputs, meaning fewer inputs were used during the period. As a result, farmers and ranchers are producing more with fewer inputs. For more on U.S. agricultural productivity trends, see the USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) Agricultural Research and Productivity topic page and the ERS Agricultural Productivity in the U.S. data product. This chart appears in the ERS technical bulletin Measurement of Output, Inputs, and Total Factor Productivity in U.S. Agricultural Productivity Accounts, published in August 2024.
Thursday, September 12, 2024
Across the United States, 8 percent of farms and ranches (153,101 out of 1.9 million) had renewable energy systems in 2022, according to data from the 2022 Census of Agriculture. This was an increase from 7 percent of farms and ranches reporting renewables in the 2017 Census of Agriculture. Renewable energy systems include everything from small-scale systems, such as rooftop solar and small hydro systems, to large-scale systems, such as solar and wind farms, as well as methane digesters, and geothermal systems. Nationally, 11 percent of all farms and ranches in the United States with renewables are in California. Texas is second with 10 percent of the U.S. total, which are located on 6 percent of the farms and ranches in Texas. States in the Southeast have the lowest share of farms and ranches with renewable energy systems, many with less than 1 percent of the U.S. total. States where more than 20 percent of farms and ranches in the State had renewable systems include Hawaii (34 percent), California (26 percent), Massachusetts, and Vermont (both 23 percent). For more Census of Agriculture data, see the USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service’s 2022 Census of Agriculture page.
Thursday, September 5, 2024
USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) forecasts inflation-adjusted U.S. net cash farm income (NCFI), defined as gross cash income minus cash expenses, will decrease by $16.3 billion (9.6 percent) to $154.1 billion in 2024. This would come after an NCFI decrease of $52.9 billion (23.7 percent) in 2023 from an all-time high of $223.3 billion in 2022. U.S. net farm income (NFI) is forecast to decrease by $10.2 billion (6.8 percent) to $140.0 billion in 2024. This reduction follows a drop of $43.3 billion (22.4 percent) in NFI in 2023 from an all-time high of $193.5 billion in 2022 (after adjusting for inflation). Net farm income is a broader measure of farm sector profitability that incorporates noncash items, including changes in inventories, economic depreciation, and gross imputed rental income. Despite these declines, if forecasts are realized, NCFI and NFI would stay above their respective 2004–23 averages in 2024. Underlying these forecasts, cash receipts for farm commodities are projected to fall by $23.3 billion (4.3 percent) to $516.5 billion in 2024, primarily because of lower crop receipts. However, a $16.2 billion (3.4 percent) reduction in production expenses is expected to moderate the overall decline. Find additional information and analysis on the ERS Farm Sector Income and Finances topic page, reflecting data released on September 5, 2024.
Thursday, August 29, 2024
U.S. dairy farms vary widely in size, from small (fewer than 50 cows) to large (2,000 or more cows). While many factors can influence a dairy farm’s production cost per unit of milk, such as technology use, management, and input prices paid, farm size can also affect costs. USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) estimates the cost of milk production by dairy herd size based on dairy-specific versions of the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), which are conducted every 5 to 6 years. Costs include operating expenditures, such as feed and veterinary care, and allocated overhead costs, such as buildings, equipment, labor, and land, some of which are economic opportunity costs. Based on the past 5 ARMS dairy surveys, the average total production cost per 100 pounds of milk sold has been consistently lower for dairy farms with larger herd sizes than for those with smaller herd sizes. In 2021, the average total cost per 100 pounds of milk sold was $42.70 for herds with fewer than 50 cows, while for farms with 2,000 or more cows, the cost was $19.14. Increased costs by year reflect the reporting of nominal, not inflation-adjusted costs. Lower per unit production costs for larger dairy farms are attributable at least partly to the ability to spread some expenses over greater output and to greater adoption of advanced technologies, management practices, and production systems. For more information, see the ERS report Structure, Costs, and Technology Used on U.S. Dairy Farms, published in July 2024.
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
A quarter of all U.S. farm operations participated in USDA direct payment programs in 2022, meaning that they received at least some payment directly from USDA (no intermediaries involved). Data from the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture show the share of operations that received some Federal payments (at a county level) were concentrated in the central United States. Conducted every 5 years by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), the most recent census occurred during a year of historically high net farm income so commodity safety net programs—in place to make payments when prices or revenues are low—were not triggered for many commodities. Comparison with 2017 Census of Agriculture shows participation rates in Southwestern and Southern Great Plains counties, while not especially higher in 2022, were higher than those recorded in previous censuses. Meanwhile, participation in many Midwestern counties was lower than in previous censuses. Participation rates are based on receipt of direct payments and do not include crop insurance or loan program participation. Based on data from USDA, Economic Research Service’s Farm Income and Wealth Statistics data product, total payments in 2022 were $16.47 billion, more than 14 percent higher after adjusting for inflation than the $14.4 billion recorded in 2017. More than 70 percent of all USDA direct payments disbursed in 2022 were from supplemental and ad hoc relief for wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, winter storms, and other eligible disasters. This Chart of Note is drawn from the NASS 2022 Census of Agriculture. For more information about the farm sector and USDA programs, see the ERS Farm Income and Wealth Statistics data product and the ERS Highlights from the Farm Income Forecast topic page.
Monday, August 26, 2024
Researchers with USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) examined cover crop use by cow-calf operations and found that more than half of producers who planted cover crops reported harvesting at least some of them. Harvesting cover crops on cow-calf operations is more likely in the Mississippi Portal and Northern Crescent regions and less likely in the Heartland region. Cow-calf operations might plant cover crops to improve soil quality on their cropland and then use the growing crop to provide feed for their cattle either by grazing the growing cover crop or harvesting the cover crop as haylage or silage to feed cattle later. In 2018–20, USDA’s Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) asked producers how many acres of cover crops they harvested for forage or other on-farm use and how many acres of cover crops were not harvested. Data from the 2017 Census of Agriculture showed that about 11 percent of cow-calf operations reported using cover crops, with the highest rates of cover crop use occurring in the Northern Crescent and Heartland regions (18 percent of operations in both regions). Information on cover crop practices on cattle operations can be found in the ERS report Cover Crops on Livestock Operations: Potential for Expansion in the United States, published in May 2024.
Monday, August 19, 2024
The rates of adoption for cover crops vary across regions and the way land is managed. To illustrate this, researchers with USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) depicted the geographic variation of survey data collected for corn-growing fields in 2021. Land in the Heartland region had adoption rates of around 10 percent for all owner-operated, cash-rented, and share-rented fields. Land in the Northern Great Plains and Prairie Gateway regions had adoption rates of around 4 percent for owner-operated fields and 11 percent for cash-rented fields. The rest of the country (any land outside of the Heartland, Great Plains, and Prairie Gateway Resource regions) had 30 percent cover crop adoption for fields operated by owner-operators and 16 percent of fields operated by cash renters, respectively. No surveyed share-rented fields in the “rest of the country” region adopted cover crops. According to the 2022 Census of Agriculture, there were 18.0 million acres of cover crops planted in 2022, a number that has grown over the last decade. More information on land leasing can be found in the ERS report Farmland Rental and Conservation Practice Adoption, published in March 2024.
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Energy payments to farm operations increased with the number of acres owned. These payments are compensation received by landowners for energy development such as from oil, natural gas, wind, or solar that occurs on their farmland. Researchers with USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) used USDA’s Agricultural Resource Management Survey data to find the average annual payment made for energy development between 2011 and 2020 to farm operators based on acreage owned. Those who owned more than 1,000 acres received an average yearly payment of $56,797. Those who owned fewer than 100 acres received an average of $12,351, less than a quarter of payments made to the largest farms. Higher payments to larger farms are associated with owners having large tracts of land preferred for energy development. More than 13 percent of farm landowners with greater than 1,000 acres received energy payments between 2011 and 2020, compared with less than 2 percent of landowners with fewer than 100 acres. Read more about the size, frequency, trends, and relative contribution of energy payments to farm operator income in the ERS report The Role of Commercial Energy Payments in Agricultural Producer Income, released in April 2024.
Monday, August 12, 2024
The 2022 Census of Agriculture shows that farms operated by a producer with military service generated 9 percent of the U.S. agricultural production value in 2022. These producers are located throughout the United States but are mainly concentrated in the eastern half of the country. The Census of Agriculture is conducted every five years by USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service and collects characteristics on up to four producers per farm operation. Producers with military service are defined as those who are currently on active duty or have served on active duty in the past. These producers accounted for 9.1 percent of all U.S. farm operators in 2022, down from 10.9 percent in the 2017 Census of Agriculture. Farms and ranches that have operators with military service produced, on average, about $170,000 per farm in 2022, compared with an average of $286,000 per farm for all operations. Information about farm businesses can be found in USDA, Economic Research Service’s America’s Farms and Ranches at a Glance.
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.
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.
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.