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Statistic
U.S. per capita disappearance of red meat and poultry is expected to reach record levels in 2018. ERS Livestock and Meat data provide insight into the key factors driving its growth.
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Finding
In recent years, young children and working-age adults have become a smaller share of the SNAP caseload, and the share of SNAP participants who are elderly has grown.
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Finding
Converting from conventional to organic production systems requires the use of approved practices in every phase of crop production. In addition, farmers cannot be certified organic until 3 years after they have adopted organic practices. These organic requirements may decrease crop yields and increase labor requirements. However, organic price premiums help offset the cost of organic production.
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Feature
Public investments in agricultural R&D have driven long-term agricultural growth in high-income countries, such as the United States, Australia, and France. Public spending on agricultural R&D by high-income countries grew significantly during the latter part of the 20th century, but this trend has recently reversed and is now falling in real terms.
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Feature
The Value-Added Producer Grant (VAPG) program provides grants to help farmers and ranchers add greater value for agricultural commodities, such as through additional processing or marketing of new products. Between 2001 and 2015, the program provided a total of 2,345 grants to farmers and ranchers—a total value of $318 million, or about $136,000 per grant on average.
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Statistic
ERS’s Food Environment Atlas provides county-level counts—both in total and on a per capita basis—of four types of stores that sell food to U.S. consumers.
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Finding
USDA conservation programs provide technical assistance to help farmers conserve resources and improve environmental quality. Conservation practices supported by payments deliver “additional” conservation or environmental improvement if the practice would not have been adopted without the payment. The extent of additionality varies widely across conservation practices.
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Finding
Disaster assistance under LFP provides eligible livestock producers with payments to partially cover additional monthly feed costs in the event of drought or wildfire. During the 2008-16 period, a historic drought (October 2011-13) contributed significantly to increased outlays.
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Finding
A recent ERS study found that the nutritional quality of purchases from grocery stores and other food stores increased with nutrition information use.
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Feature
China’s agricultural investment abroad has grown over tenfold in less than a decade. The growth mirrors China’s emergence as a major importer of agricultural commodities.
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Statistic
ERS's Fruit and Tree Nut Yearbook provides updates on production, price, and trade trends across the fruit and tree nut sector. ERS researchers found that consumer demand has driven increases in availability, imports, and production.
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Finding
Fiscal 2017’s 4.6-percent decrease in participation in USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in large part reflects the continued improvement in the U.S. economy.
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Finding
Between December 2014 and June 2015, more than 50 million chickens and turkeys in the United States died of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) or were destroyed to stop the spread of the disease. ERS researchers recently analyzed the outbreak's impact on egg prices.
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Finding
USDA's Direct Operating Microloans are designed to be more convenient and accessible than traditional Direct Operating Loans (DOLs) for groups such as beginning farmers, veterans, women, and minorities. Although any farmer can apply for a Microloan, FSA reserves 70 percent of its funds for these groups. FSA distributed more Microloans in regions with larger shares of farmers in those groups.
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Statistic
While still a small share of food production costs, pollination service fees are now the largest source of beekeeper revenue
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Feature
Agricultural production has shifted to larger farms over the last three decades. Technology has been the primary driver of this shift, which has been large and widespread across crop and livestock commodities. Despite the shift to larger operations, family businesses still dominate U.S. agriculture: consolidation has shifted acreage and production to larger family farms.
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Statistic
Technological developments in agriculture have driven long-term growth in U.S. agricultural productivity. Innovations in animal and crop genetics, chemicals, equipment, and farm organization have enabled continuing output growth while using much less labor and farmland. As a result, total agricultural output nearly tripled between 1948 and 2015—even as the amount of labor and land used declined.
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Finding
A recent ERS study found that the future of China's dairy supply depends on increased domestic production and greater dairy trade. China's growing dairy production provides opportunities for U.S exports of alfalfa and other inputs.
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Finding
An ERS study found that shopping at direct-to-consumer outlets can increase a household’s weekly average spending on fruits and vegetables.
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Finding
A notable characteristic of principal farm operators, the person most responsible for running the farm, is their relatively advanced age. In 2016, 36 percent of principal farm operators were at least 65 years old, compared with only 14 percent of self-employed workers in nonagricultural businesses. Older operators ran 37 percent of all small family farms.
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Finding
Low-income households with more difficult access to large grocery stores spent a similar share of their food budgets at these stores—but a greater share at convenience, dollar, and drugstores—compared with households with easier access.
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Feature
A recent ERS study found that SNAP households acquire about the same amount of calories per adult equivalent as non-SNAP households, while spending fewer dollars and relying more on school meals and food from family and friends.
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Feature
Farm real estate (including land and the structures on the land) accounts for over 80 percent of farm sector assets. Farmland values have appreciated substantially since 2000, more than doubling from $1,483 per acre in 2000 to $3,060 per acre in 2015. Cropland appreciated faster than pastureland, while farmland in the Midwest appreciated faster than other areas of the country.
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Statistic
ERS’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) policy index shows that all States adopted some policies that are more accommodative to program participation, though some States acted faster than others.
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Finding
Rural inpatient healthcare facilities—including hospitals and nursing care facilities—may improve the health and economic well-being of local communities. Between 2007 and 2010, rural inpatient healthcare jobs increased by 26,000 (2.3%). Rural inpatient healthcare accounted for 7.6% of total rural wage and salary employment in 2001 (over 1.1 million jobs) and grew to 8.1% by 2015.
