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.
Monday, October 7, 2024
Genetically engineered seeds were commercially introduced for major field crops in the United States in 1996, with adoption rates increasing rapidly in the years that followed. The most planted trait types of genetically engineered seeds are herbicide tolerant (HT) and insect resistant (Bt). These traits can be added individually to seeds or combined into in a single seed, called stacked seed traits. USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) reports information on genetically engineered HT and Bt crops in the data product Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S. These data show that by 2008 more than 50 percent of corn, cotton, and soybean acres were planted with genetically engineered seeds using at least one trait—a number that has risen to 90 percent as of 2024. Although traits other than Bt have been developed, such as virus, fungus, or drought resistance, and enhanced protein, oil, or vitamin content, HT and Bt traits are the most commonly used in U.S. crop production. While HT seeds are also widely used in alfalfa, canola, and sugar beet production, most genetically engineered acres are planted to three major field crops: corn, cotton, and soybeans. This chart appears in the ERS topic page Biotechnology, updated in August 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.
Monday, September 9, 2024
Over time, the inputs used in producing the U.S. farm outputs have shifted from land (categorized as part of capital) and labor toward intermediate inputs, such as fertilizers, pesticides, energy, and purchased services. Meanwhile, the quality of agricultural inputs has improved in all three categories—labor, capital (land, as well as machinery and farm buildings), and intermediate inputs. For example, fertilizers containing nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium have undergone significant changes in quality over time, making them more effective. Pesticides also have improved potency, persistence, toxicity, and absorption rates. Further, workers in the agricultural labor pool now have attained higher education levels. As for capital, technological developments have allowed farm operators to replace obsolete machinery with more efficient capital assets. USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) researchers tracking these improvements in input quality have found that labor quality increases contributed 0.11 to the 1.46-percent average annual output growth rate between 1948 and 2021 (compared with the reduction in labor quantity contribution of -0.42 percent). Quality improvements in capital and intermediate inputs contributed 0.04 percentage points each toward the output growth. While capital inputs show reductions in quantity, mostly from the decline in land use, the use of intermediate inputs has increased. Advancements in input quality and shifts away from inputs like labor and land to intermediate inputs mostly offset the decline in total input use, leaving total input with a -0.03 percent decrease per year during the study period. The major factor that allows the sector to produce greater output despite fewer inputs than in the past is the gain in total factor productivity (TFP), advanced by technical change in genetic improvement in livestock and crops, as well as efficiency change through improved farm management and practices. 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.
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Technological developments in agriculture have enabled continued output growth without requiring much additional inputs. Innovations in animal and crop genetics, chemicals, equipment, and farm organization have made it possible for total agricultural output to nearly triple between 1948 and 2021. During that period, the amount of inputs used in farming declined slightly over time, meaning that the growth in agricultural output over the long term has depended on increases in total factor productivity (TFP). TFP measures the amount of agricultural output produced from the combined inputs (land, labor, capital, and intermediate inputs) employed in farm production. Therefore, growth in TFP indicates positive changes in the efficiency with which inputs are transformed into outputs. It can also be seen as an indicator of technical change. In the short term, total output growth and estimated TFP growth can be affected by random events, such as adverse weather. In the most recent TFP calculation period spanning 2020–21, agricultural output grew, which was due entirely to TFP growth, even as the amount of inputs used in farming fell. This figure appears in the Agricultural Productivity in the U.S.: Summary of Recent Findings updated in January 2024.
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Genetically engineered (GE) seeds were commercially introduced in the United States for major field crops in 1996, with adoption rates increasing rapidly in the years that followed. The two main GE trait types are herbicide-tolerant (HT) and insect-resistant (Bt). These traits can be added individually to seeds as well as combined into a single seed, called stacked seed traits. USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) reports information on GE crops in the data product Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S. These data show that by 2008, more than 50 percent of corn, cotton, and soybean acres were planted with at least one GE seed trait. Today, more than 90 percent of corn, cotton, and soybean acres are planted using at least one GE trait. Traits other than HT and Bt have been developed, such as resistance to viruses, fungi, and drought or enhanced protein, oil, or vitamin content. However, HT and Bt traits are the most used in U.S. crop production. While HT seeds also are widely used in alfalfa, canola, and sugar beet production, most GE acres are occupied by three major field crops: corn, cotton, and soybeans. This chart appears in the ERS topic page Biotechnology, published in October 2023.
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
According to weather data from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), temperatures in the Corn Belt, a region spanning across Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin, have trended higher in recent years and are projected to continue to rise through the end of this century. Two measures can be used to capture how rising temperatures affect crops’ growth—growing degree days and extreme degree days. Growing degree days describe the beneficial temperatures in a day that allow a plant to grow and mature. With rising temperatures, the growing degree days for corn and soybeans increase. A crop’s exposure to added growing degree days is not necessarily harmful; after all, crops need heat and precipitation to grow. However, extreme degree days, which refer to temperatures throughout the day in excess of 30 °C (86 °F), cause heat stress that is harmful for a plant. Each decade since 1992, both growing degree days and extreme degree days have steadily increased with rising temperatures in the Corn Belt, where about 80 percent of all U.S. corn and soybeans are grown. In the decade leading to 2032, both measures are projected to continue to increase. This chart first appeared in the USDA, Economic Research Service report, Estimating Market Implications From Corn and Soybean Yields Under Climate Change in the United States, published in October 2023.
Monday, November 27, 2023
In the last decade, world agricultural output grew at an average annual rate of 1.94 percent per year, far slower than the 2.74-percent output growth rate over the previous decade and below the average annual rate of 2.3 percent over the last six decades (1961–2021). The slowdown in agricultural growth was primarily tied to a slowing rate of growth in agricultural total factor productivity (TFP), which fell to 1.14 percent per year in 2011–2021 (compared with 1.93 percent per year the previous decade). TFP measures the amount of agricultural output produced from the aggregated inputs used in the production process (land, labor, capital, and material resources). The figure shows four major sources of overall growth: bringing more land into production (holding yields fixed); extending irrigation to land; intensifying the use of capital, labor, and material inputs per unit of land; and improving TFP, which reflects the rate of technological and efficiency improvements of inputs. This data can be found in the ERS International Agricultural Productivity data product, updated in September 2023.
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Between 1948 and 2019, the volume of crops produced in the U.S. grew 186 percent, and livestock production grew 140 percent. USDA, Economic Research Service researchers classify crop output into six subcategories: food grains, feed crops, oil crops, vegetables and melons, fruits and nuts, and other crops. Of those, production of oil crops increased the most, by more than seven times. Growth in fruits and nuts ranked second, with production more than doubling. Food grains grew the least, at 78 percent. Among three categories of livestock and products, poultry and egg production increased the most, by more than seven times. Dairy products grew 132 percent, and meat animal production grew 92 percent. The varying growth rates reflect changes over the past 70 years in consumer demand and preferences, international market demand, and technological advancements among products. Overall, crop production is more volatile than livestock production because of weather changes. This chart appears in the Amber Waves article U.S. Agricultural Output Has Grown Slower in Response to Stagnant Productivity Growth, published in October 2022.
Monday, February 13, 2023
U.S. farm output—the total amount of livestock, crops, and other farm-related outputs produced in a year—tripled in the seven decades from 1948 to 2019. At the same time, the total amount of inputs used in U.S. farm production only increased slightly by 4 percent, at an annual rate of 0.06 percent, partly because of a shift away from labor and land and toward non-land capital and other intermediate inputs. From 1948 to 2019, the amount of farm labor used in the production of U.S. agricultural commodities fell 74 percent, and land use declined 28 percent. On the other hand, the use of intermediate inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides, and purchased services grew 126 percent, and the use of capital inputs such as machinery and farm structures (chicken houses and greenhouses, for example) grew 79 percent. Over the years, technological changes have made inputs such as machinery and agricultural chemicals more affordable for farmers and have partially replaced labor and land inputs in the production process. As a result, increased productivity has been the primary source of growth in U.S. agricultural output. Over the 70 years, farm output grew at an average annual rate of 1.42 percent, and productivity contributed 1.36 percentage points to that growth rate. This chart appears in the Amber Waves article U.S. Agricultural Output Has Grown Slower in Response to Stagnant Productivity Growth, published in October 2022.
Monday, July 18, 2022
While in recent decades public agricultural research and development (R&D) funding in the United States has trended downward, several other major trading partners have increased their funding. The European Union’s expenditures have grown since 2000, as have the expenditures in India and Brazil. However, none experienced as rapid an increase as China, which became the largest funder of agricultural R&D after 2011, surpassing the European Union. By 2015, the last year for which the USDA, Economic Research Service has full data, China was spending more than $10 billion annually on agricultural R&D. That level of spending was roughly twice the U.S. expenditures in 2015 and nearly quintuple that of China’s own R&D spending in 2000. With China as a major importer of U.S. agricultural goods and Brazil a competitor to the U.S. in the global corn and soybean markets, these developments could have an impact on U.S. export competitiveness. For all countries in the figure, R&D expenditures are expressed as purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars at constant 2015 prices. This chart appears in the ERS’s Amber Waves article, “Investment in U.S. Public Agricultural Research and Development Has Fallen by a Third Over Past Two Decades, Lags Behind Major Trade Competitors,” published June 2022.
Monday, June 27, 2022
Roughly 70 percent of public agricultural research and development (R&D) in the United States is performed by universities and other nonfederal cooperating institutions. Land-grant universities alone account for about half of all public agricultural R&D spending. State forestry schools, veterinary schools, and historically black colleges and universities account for most of the remaining agricultural R&D conducted at nonfederal institutions. State land-grant universities and agricultural experiment stations primarily perform research on topics of interest to their State or region, though this research has a national impact in the form of training scientists and generating basic scientific insights. USDA agencies such as the Agricultural Research Service and Forest Service perform the other 30 percent of public agricultural research, focusing on national and regional topics. This chart appears in the ERS’s Amber Waves article, “Investment in U.S. Public Agricultural Research and Development Has Fallen by a Third Over Past Two Decades, Lags Behind Major Trade Competitors,” published June 2022.
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
The Federal Government provides 64 percent of public agricultural research and development (R&D) funding in the United States. State governments and non-governmental sources, including funds generated by the universities themselves, account for the other 36 percent of funds for public agricultural R&D. Federal funds are delivered via external grants to universities and other cooperating institutions, and through appropriations to USDA agencies. Most of the Federal funding for agricultural research performed by non-Federal institutions is managed by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). NIFA allocates these funds through capacity grants to land grant and minority-serving institutions as well as through competitive grants that are open to all universities. Of the $1.663 billion in outlays for agricultural research by USDA research agencies (primarily the Agricultural Research Service, Economic Research Service, and the Forest Service), about $165 million was allocated to cooperative research agreements with universities. The National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and other Federal agencies are also important funders of agricultural R&D, accounting for about 15 percent of the Federal total. Agricultural research funded by these agencies is performed primarily at universities. This chart appears in the ERS’s Amber Waves article, “Investment in U.S. Public Agricultural Research and Development Has Fallen by a Third Over Past Two Decades, Lags Behind Major Trade Competitors,” published June 2022.
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Spending on agricultural research and development (R&D) comes from private and public sources. Public R&D, however, has traditionally been the primary source directly oriented toward improving farm technology and productivity. Since the early 2000s, expenditures have declined in real terms for agricultural R&D performed by public institutions, including USDA laboratories, land grant universities, and other cooperating institutions. Researchers with USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) found that R&D expenditures are now only slightly above the 1970 level of about $5 billion and well below the 2002 peak of just under $8 billion (constant 2019 dollars). Research expenditures were adjusted for inflation using the National Institutes of Health’s Biomedical Research and Development Price Index (BRDPI). This chart appears in the ERS’s Amber Waves article, “Investment in U.S. Public Agricultural Research and Development Has Fallen by a Third Over Past Two Decades, Lags Behind Major Trade Competitors,” published June 2022.
Monday, April 18, 2022
Agricultural output in the United States nearly tripled between 1948 and 2017, with average annual output growth at 1.53 percent. While reduction of labor hours worked has contributed negatively, changes in labor quality have contributed positively to output growth over the years. Labor quality includes shifts in composition of demographic attributes, such as gender, age, educational attainment, employment type and other factors. ERS researchers group the study period into 12 sub-periods in accordance with U.S. economic business cycles (from peak to peak). Most of the contraction in total hours worked occurred between 1948 and 1969, during the expansionary period after World War II. By the 2007–17 economic business cycle, the decline in labor hours had its lowest negative effect on output growth, -0.16 percentage points. ERS researchers found that total labor quality had a positive effect on output growth in all economic business cycles except the 1979-81 period. The effects of labor quality on agricultural output growth were especially prominent before 1969. It accounted for nearly 25 percent of total output growth per year in the 1948–53, 1953–57, and 1960–66 subperiods, and 14 percent of annual output growth in the 1966-69 subperiod. Except for the period immediately after WWII, the major source of labor quality changes was an increase in educational attainment among farmworkers. On average, the increase in educational attainment accounted for more than 90 percent of the changes in labor quality between 1948 and 2017. Nevertheless, since 1969, the rise in educational attainment has slowed, and the overall influence of labor quality on output growth has diminished. This chart is drawn from the USDA, Economic Research Service report “Farm Labor, Human Capital, and Agricultural Productivity in the United States,” published Feb. 15, 2022.
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
Organic dairy farms must follow a variety of USDA regulations to obtain certification and maintain their organic status. For example, they have to use organic grains and feed supplements, and they mostly rely on pasture-based feeding, which makes them more vulnerable to weather shocks such as drought or sudden and intense storms. These challenges mean productivity on organic dairy farms grows at a slower rate than on operations using conventional processes. Productivity is measured as total factor productivity (TFP), the ratio of the total amount of goods (in this case, milk) produced relative to all the inputs—such as labor, fertilizer, and other costs—used to produce those goods. USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) researchers studied the difference in TFP growth between organic and conventional farms using data from organic dairy farms between 2005–16 and from conventional dairy farms between 2000–16. TFP grew at an annual rate of 0.66 percent for organic dairy farms compared with 2.51 percent among conventional dairy operations. Both organic and conventional farms saw productivity growth due to technological progress such as advanced equipment and improved genetics. While weather-related feed factors reduced productivity for organic farms, they contributed to a productivity growth for conventional dairy farms. Technical efficiency increased productivity slightly on organic farms, but reduced productivity on conventional farms, while scale-and-mix efficiency reduced productivity for both types of farms. This chart was included in the ERS report Sources, Trends, and Drivers of U.S. Dairy Productivity and Efficiency, published in February 2022.
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Agricultural output in the United States nearly tripled between 1948 and 2017 even as the amount of labor hours-worked declined by more than 80 percent. These opposing trends resulted in an increase in labor productivity growth in the U.S. farm sector. Labor productivity—calculated as average output per unit of labor input—is a popular measure for understanding economic growth. According to USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) estimates, agricultural output per worker grew by 16 times from 1948 through 2017. At the same time, agricultural output per hour worked grew even faster, by 17 times, implying that average hours worked per worker declined. Labor productivity estimates can vary based on different ways labor is measured. One factor in the increased labor productivity is the quality of labor, measured by attributes such as age, gender, and the highest level of education a worker has reached. Because these attributes may affect worker performance, ERS researchers accounted for labor quality changes in analyzing farm labor productivity. When labor quality changes since 1948 were accounted for, labor productivity grew at a slower rate than those based simply on hours worked or employment. The reason is because labor quality is treated as a part of labor input instead of productivity. This implies that changes in labor quality, such as improvements in education, account for much of the change in labor productivity over the last seven decades. ERS researchers estimate that changes to farm worker attributes accounted for about 13 percent of growth in hourly based annual labor productivity during the time studied. This chart in included in the ERS report Farm Labor, Human Capital, and Agricultural Productivity in the United States, published Feb. 15, 2022.
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
In 2020, most of the values of cotton (62 percent), dairy (73 percent), and specialty crops (57 percent) were produced on large-scale family farms. USDA defines a family farm as one in which the principal operator and related family own the majority of the assets used in the operation. Large-scale family farms are those with an annual gross cash farm income of $1 million or more. However, small family farms produced the bulk of hay production (59 percent) and poultry and egg output (49 percent) in 2020. Poultry operations are often classified as “small” because most output is under a production contract arrangement, with a contractor paying a fee to a farmer who raises poultry to maturity. Additionally, more than one-quarter of beef production occurred on small family farms that generally have cow/calf operations. Another 42 percent of beef production occurred on large-scale family farms, which are more likely to operate feedlots. Midsize family farms production ranges from 8 to almost 30 percent of value of production. Nonfamily farms produce the smallest share of the value of production for most commodities. Of all the commodities, nonfamily farms contribute the most to specialty crop production at 27 percent. This chart is found in the Economic Research Service report, America’s Diverse Family Farms: 2021 Edition, released December 2021.
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Since the 1960s, global agricultural output by volume has increased at an average annual rate of 2.3 percent, fluctuating between 2 and 3 percent on a decade-to-decade basis. In the latest decade (2011–19), the global output of total crop, animal, and aquaculture commodities grew an average rate of 2.08 percent per year. Several factors contribute to output growth, including expansion of agricultural land, extension of irrigation to existing cropland, the intensification of input use (more labor, capital, and material inputs per acre), and total factor productivity (TFP), a measure of the contribution of technological and efficiency improvements in the farm sector. Before the 1990s, most output growth came from increases in input use, including expansion of land, irrigation, and intensification of other inputs. Since the 1990s, growth in TFP, rather than growth in inputs, accounted for most of the growth in world agriculture output. From 2011 to 2019, TFP globally grew at an annual rate of 1.31 percent, accounting for nearly two-thirds of output growth. This chart comes from the USDA, Economic Research Service data product International Agricultural Productivity, updated in October 2021.
Friday, December 10, 2021
Total factor productivity (TFP) growth reflects the rate of technological and efficiency improvements in the agricultural sector and productivity growth varies across countries. TFP measures the amount of agricultural output produced from the combined set of land, labor, capital, and material resources employed in the production process. Agricultural TFP grew most rapidly (at more than 2 percent on average) in the dark green-colored countries and most slowly (or not at all) in the light green-colored countries. National policies and institutions, especially those that promote innovation and technical change, play a significant role in driving TFP growth in agriculture. Strengthening the capacity of national agricultural research and extension systems to develop and deliver new agricultural technologies to farmers has been a critical factor in raising agricultural productivity. Information from the International Agricultural Productivity data product and related ERS research show that that Brazil and India’s TFP growth can be attributed to long-term investments in agricultural research. China’s TFP growth can be attributed to investments in research and institutional and economic reforms. In contrast, Russia’s low rate of agricultural TFP growth is attributed to inefficiencies under a planned economy (until 1991) followed by economic disruptions that accompanied its transition to a market economy. Under-investment in agricultural research and extension and poor market infrastructure remain important barriers to stimulating agricultural productivity growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. This data can be found in the International Agricultural Productivity data product, last updated in October 2021.
Monday, July 12, 2021
Raising the productivity of existing agricultural resources—rather than bringing new resources into production—has become the major source of growth in world agriculture. Farm productivity is measured by total factor productivity (TFP), an index that takes into account the land, labor, capital, and material resources employed in farm production and compares them with the total amount of crop and livestock output. If total output is growing faster than total inputs, then the total productivity of the factors of production (i.e., total factor productivity) is increasing. Using the latest available data through 2016, agricultural productivity has risen steadily in most industrialized countries at between 1 and 2 percent a year since at least the 1970s. Since the 1990s, many developing countries as well as transition economies that belonged to the former Soviet bloc also have increased their agricultural productivity. Long-term research investments to develop new technologies have been especially important to sustaining higher agricultural TFP growth rates in large, rapidly developing countries such as Brazil and India. Institutional and economic reforms, combined with technological changes, have led to significant benefits for Chinese agriculture. Additionally, Russian agriculture rebounded after the early 1990s economic transition from a planned to a market-based economy, and the southern region of the country achieved notable productivity improvement. In contrast, under-investment in agricultural research remains an important barrier to stimulating agricultural productivity growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. This chart appears in USDA, Economic Research Service data product for International Agricultural Productivity, updated November 2019.