Ten commodities accounted for 48 percent of the jobs supported by U.S. agricultural exports in 2023

U.S. agricultural exports involve more than the movement of goods from farm to port—they require labor for production, processing, marketing, and transportation of products from farm to port. In 2023, these exports required an estimated 1.05 million full-time jobs in farming and related industries. USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) annually measures this labor using an agricultural trade multiplier which estimates the employment and output effects of trade in farm and food products on the U.S. economy. In 2023, U.S. agricultural exports were valued at $175.5 billion. On average, every $1 billion of exported U.S. agricultural products supported 5,997 jobs that year in both the farm and non-farm sectors. Ten major agricultural commodity exports supported 503,099 of the 1.05 million jobs—48 percent. Soybean and corn exports alone supported more than 212,516 jobs, and beef, chicken, and pork exports supported about 157,434 jobs. This chart is drawn from ERS’s Agricultural Trade Multipliers, released June 2025.