Ag and Food Statistics: Charting the Essentials

USDA conservation efforts rely mainly on voluntary incentive programs to address natural resource issues. The Conservation Reserve Program pays farmers to remove environmentally sensitive land from production and encourages partial field practices including grass waterways and riparian buffers. Working-land programs provide technical and financial assistance to farmers who install or maintain conservation practices on land in production (e.g., nutrient management, conservation tillage, and field-edge filter strips). Agricultural easements provide long-term protection for agricultural land and wetlands. The Regional Conservation Partners Program coordinates conservation program assistance with partners to solve problems on a regional or watershed scale.

Gross farm income reflects the total value of agricultural output plus Government farm program payments. Net farm income (NFI)—which reflects income from production in the current year—is calculated by subtracting farm expenses from gross farm income. NFI considers both cash and noncash income and expenses. Inflation-adjusted net farm income is forecast to decline almost 15 percent in 2018, to $65.7 billion, after increasing in 2017. Inflation-adjusted expenses are projected to increase slightly (1 percent) in 2018 after declining in each of the 3 prior years.

Between July 2016 and July 2017, rural (nonmetro) counties increased in population for the first time this decade, according to the Census Bureau’s latest population estimates. The shift in rural population change was quite small, from a loss of 15,000 people in 2015-16 to a gain of 33,000 in 2016-17. However, it continues an upward trend in all but one year since 2011-12, when rural counties declined by 61,000 people. Population growth rates for rural areas have been significantly lower than in urban (metro) areas since the mid-1990s, and the gap widened considerably after the housing-market crisis in 2007 and the Great Recession that followed. The gap between rural and urban growth rates has narrowed slightly in recent years, but remains significant. Urban areas grew by 0.82 percent in 2016-17, compared with 0.07 percent growth in rural areas. The post-recession recovery in population growth for nonmetro America during this decade has been much more gradual compared with previous post-recession periods.

The United States produces and sells a wide variety of agricultural products across the Nation. In terms of sales value, California leads the country as the largest producer of agricultural products (crops and livestock), accounting for almost 11 percent of the national total, based on the 2012 Census of Agriculture. Iowa, Texas, Nebraska, and Minnesota round out the top five agricultural-producing States, with those five representing more than a third of U.S. agricultural-output value.

After 5 years of steady growth, U.S. agricultural exports declined in 2015 to $133 billion due to slower world economic growth, a strong U.S. dollar, lower exports of high-value products, and falling prices for bulk commodities. U.S. imports continued to grow at 2 percent in 2015 as the real exchange rate has made foreign goods cheaper in the U.S. domestic market. However, import gains were well below the 7-percent average for 2000-15, reflecting slower growth in global trade volume last year. These shifts in U.S. agricultural trade produced a trade surplus in 2015 about half of its 2014 value at $19.5 billion.

While Americans are consuming more vegetables and fruit than in 1970, the average U.S. diet still falls short of the recommendations in the <i>2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans</i> for these major food groups. Americans, on average, consumed more than the recommended amounts of meat, eggs, and nuts and grains in 2015.

The food-at-home CPI rose 0.3 percent from the second quarter of 2017 to the second quarter 2018. Although egg prices were up by 19.7 percent over this period, eggs represent a small share of total grocery spending. The food-at-home CPI is weighted by average consumer expenditure shares, which are largest for other foods (snacks, soups, frozen entrees, etc.), cereals and bakery products, fresh fruits and vegetables, nonalcoholic beverages, and dairy. Prices for fresh vegetables fell 1.8 percent, nonalcoholic beverages were 0.8 percent lower, and both dairy and other foods fell by 0.2 percent, moderating overall food-at-home inflation.

In 2017, 88.2 percent of U.S. households were food secure throughout the year. The remaining 11.8 percent of households were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 4.5 percent (5.8 million households) that had very low food security. Both food insecurity and very low food security were lower in 2017 than 2016. Food insecurity increased from 10.5 percent in 2000 to nearly 12 percent in 2004, declined to around 11 percent in 2005-07, then increased to 14.6 in 2008.