ERS Charts of Note
Subscribe to get highlights from our current and past research, Monday through Friday, or see our privacy policy.
Get the latest charts via email, or on our mobile app for 
and 
Monday, February 22, 2016
China’s livestock industry has expanded rapidly in recent years as diets shift toward more animal proteins. China is now the world’s largest producer of livestock products and the largest manufacturer of animal feed. Commercial feed production grew from just 5 million metric tons (mmt) in 1982 to 198 mmt in 2014. The industry’s growth paralleled that of meat and egg production, which grew from about 15 mmt annually in the early 1980s to 114 mmt in 2014. China’s surge in feed output for swine after 2007 reflects the Government’s emphasis on modernizing hog production and the substitution of commercial feed for locally procured materials. Feed produced for poultry grew steadily from 1990 to 2012 as feed companies promoted vertical coordination in poultry production beginning in the 1990s. Feed production for egg-laying poultry, aquaculture, cattle, and sheep also grew rapidly during 2004-2012. The growth of China’s commercial feed industry has increased its need for imported feed ingredients, making it a leading market for U.S. soybeans, sorghum, barley, and other commodities. This chart is from Development of China’s Feed Industry and Demand for Imported Commodities.
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
After nearly four decades of transitioning from a largely plant-based diet toward greater meat consumption, China is now the world’s largest producer of livestock products and has also emerged as the largest manufacturer of animal feed. This industry’s need for a reliable supply of feed ingredients has led to a reduction of China’s import barriers for many agricultural commodities and to China’s emergence as the world’s largest importer of soybeans and a growing market for imported distillers dried grains, sorghum and barley. The need for corn is still met largely through domestic production, but China became a net corn importer in 2009. The continued growth of the feed industry and demand for feed ingredients could further curb the use of trade barriers that protect Chinese grain and oilseed producers. As advocates for lower import barriers, Chinese feed companies help to forge closer integration between China’s agricultural markets and global markets. This chart is from Development of China’s Feed Industry and Demand for Imported Commodities.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
As China enters a new phase of its economic development, its demand for higher-valued products like meat and dairy products is growing rapidly. China’s imports of meats during 2013-14 were more than double the volume imported during the early 2000s. Growing demand and higher prices of domestic meat products have driven the growth in China’s meat imports over the past few years. China’s meat imports have shifted from items like chicken feet and animal offal to muscle meat, as living standards rose and China opened its market to more beef and mutton imports. The U.S. is currently the top supplier of China’s poultry and pork imports. U.S. exports of meat, dairy products, and other consumer-oriented products, such as fruits, nuts, and wine to China rose from $234 million in 2000 to $3 billion in 2013, comprising nearly 12 percent of the value of total U.S. agricultural exports to China that year. The growth in China’s meat imports could mean new opportunities for U.S. exporters. This chart is based on the ERS report, China’s Growing Demand for Agricultural Imports.
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
India’s economic growth and rising incomes have expanded consumer food demand to include higher valued foods, such as fruit, vegetables, and some meat products. Indian farmers appear to be meeting these new growth opportunities. A look at average production shares in the 1980-84 and the 2004-08 periods shows that growth in production of animal and horticulture products reduced the share of production growth attributable to grains. Accordingly, India’s real value of farm production increased an average 3 percent each year, rising from 2.6 trillion rupees in 1980 to 7.3 trillion rupees in 2008, or from $42 billion to $116 billion. This chart is based on Propellers of Agricultural Productivity in India, December 2015.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Dietary changes in China have led to profound changes in its markets for agricultural products. China is now the world’s largest producer of livestock products as well as the largest manufacturer of animal feed. Commercial feed includes a variety of raw materials that can be altered depending on market conditions, but the predominant ingredients in China are corn and soybean meal. China is the world’s largest importer of soybeans, but the Chinese Government’s long-standing goal of self-sufficiency in grains has led to several policies aimed at supporting and expanding domestic corn production, resulting in China’s corn output doubling from 2000 to 2013. Corn output has surpassed that of wheat and rice, and became the country’s leading crop in 2012. In contrast, China’s domestic soybean output was relatively flat throughout this period and declined to under 12 million metric tons in 2013. While import restrictions and price supports succeeded in expanding corn production, those policies also led to large corn surpluses held in government stocks at prices well above world prices. This chart is from Development of China’s Feed Industry and Demand for Imported Commodities, November 19, 2015.
Friday, October 16, 2015
The average annual rate of global agricultural output growth slowed in the 1970s and 1980s, then accelerated in the 1990s and 2000s. In the latest period estimated (2001-12), global output of total crop and livestock commodities was expanding at an average rate of 2.5 percent per year. In the decades prior to 1990, most output growth came about from intensification of input use (i.e., using more labor, capital, and material inputs per acre of agricultural land). Bringing new land into agriculture production and extending irrigation to existing agricultural land were also important sources of growth. This changed over the last two decades, as input growth slowed. In 2001-12, improvements in productivity—getting more output from existing resources—accounted for about two-thirds of the total growth in agricultural output worldwide, reflecting the use of new technology and changes in management practices by agricultural producers around the world. This chart is based on the ERS data product, International Agricultural Productivity, updated October 2015.
Friday, October 9, 2015
Since 2009, India’s exports of beef—specifically water buffalo meat, also known as carabeef—have expanded, with India moving ahead of Brazil to become the world’s largest beef exporter in 2014. India’s beef exports grew about 14 percent annually between 2000 and 2015, and are expected to lead major exporters with about 6 percent annual growth during 2015-2025. India’s exports of relatively low-cost beef (primarily to low- and middle-income markets in Southeast Asia and the Middle East) reached a 24 percent global market share in 2015, and that share is projected to increase to 32 percent by 2025. The U.S. share of the global beef market has fluctuated, but averaged 12 percent during 2013-2015, and is projected to rise to 15 percent in 2025. This chart is based on data and analysis from USDA Agricultural Projections to 2024.
Monday, August 10, 2015
Agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) is the difference between the aggregate total output of crop/livestock commodities and the combined use of land, labor, capital and material inputs employed in farm production. Growth in TFP implies that the adoption of new technology or improved management of farm resources is increasing average productivity or efficiency of input use. Worldwide, agricultural TFP grew at an average annual rate of 1.7 percent during of 2002-11, the latest decade for which figures are available. However, not all countries are achieving growth in agricultural TFP. Among developing countries, some large countries like China and Brazil are improving their agricultural TFP rapidly, but many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are lagging behind. Most developed countries are continuing to achieve moderate rates of agricultural TFP growth, but some, such as the UK and Australia, have experienced a slowdown in TFP growth. Maintaining growth in agricultural TFP is necessary for achieving global food security goals and could help preserve natural resources. This map is based on data from ERS’ International Agricultural Productivity accounts.
Friday, July 31, 2015
Cotton production is concentrated among only a few countries, with the world’s five largest cotton-producing countries forecast to produce nearly 80% of world production in 2015/16. India and China together account for more than 50 percent of global cotton production, but production in China is declining while increasing in India. In 2015/16, India is expected to surpass China as the world’s largest cotton producer for the first time on record, with a crop forecast at 29.5 million bales, pushing India’s share of world production to 26.5 percent. For China, 2015/16 production is forecast to decrease 10 percent (3 million bales) to 27 million bales, the lowest since 2003/04. China’s share of global production is forecast at 24 percent as area continues to trend lower. The difference in the production outlook for China and India can be traced in part to China’s rising wages and increasing production costs, while new technology and production practices have driven India’s yields and output significantly higher in recent years. Its output surpassed the United States for the first time in 2006 and is now poised to surpass China, which had been the world’s largest cotton producer since 1982. This chart is from July 2015 Cotton and Wool Outlook report.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Global cotton stocks have risen over the last several years, largely the result of growth in China’s stocks. Government policies in China supported national reserve purchases of domestic cotton and, at the same time, significant imports of raw cotton. These policies strengthened global cotton prices by keeping China’s supplies out of the marketplace while also encouraging production in other countries. Stocks in China at the end of 2014/15 (August/July marketing year) are estimated at a record 65.6 million bales, or 60 percent of global stocks. For 2015/16, policy adjustments in China are expected to reduce stocks slightly to 62.6 million bales, with its share of world stocks remaining unchanged. Globally, cotton stocks are expected to decline in 2015/16 for the first time in 6 years, but would still remain more than double the level in 2010/11, resulting result in only a slight decrease in the world stocks-to-use ratio. As a result, the 2015/16 world cotton price is expected to remain near the current season’s average of about 71 cents per pound, the lowest in 6 years. This chart is from the June 2015 Cotton and Wool Outlook.
Friday, May 8, 2015
China has been the world’s largest cotton producer and consumer of cotton for decades, and it became the largest importer shortly after its 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Economic growth has transformed its agriculture sector, driving wages higher and spurring greater mechanization in many areas; however, small scale cotton production persists with limited mechanization and high production costs, especially in eastern China. To support its farmers, China introduced a support price for cotton in 2011, and from 2011 to 2013 acquired more than 40 percent of China’s cotton crop in an attempt to maintain domestic cotton prices 50-60 percent above world prices. This has resulted in China’s government owning a large amount of cotton stocks, equivalent to nearly 200 percent of its annual use and half of the world’s consumption. New policies in 2014 included a shift from stock acquisition toward target-price based direct subsidies and a sharp reduction in cotton import quotas. Reduced purchases by China’s government and a transition of cotton stockpiles toward long run historic levels could result in years of lower imports, and a decline in world prices. This chart is based on Cotton Policy in China, CWS-15c-01, March 2015.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Intraregional agricultural trade among the United States, Canada, and Mexico has grown since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. In 2011-13, agricultural imports from NAFTA partners accounted for 80 percent of Mexico’s total agricultural imports, 63 percent of Canada’s imports, and nearly 40 percent of all U.S. agricultural imports. Roughly two-thirds of U.S. agricultural imports from Mexico consist of beer, vegetables, and fruit. These imports are closely tied to Mexico's historical expertise in producing alcoholic beverages and a wide range of fruit and vegetables, along with favorable climates with growing seasons that largely complement those of the United States. Meat, grains, vegetables, fruit, and related products make up roughly 60 percent of U.S. agricultural imports from Canada, while grains, fruit, vegetables, meat, and related products accounted for about 61 percent of U.S. agricultural exports to Canada. Grains, oilseeds, meat, and related products make up about three-fourths of U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico. This chart is based on data found in NAFTA at 20: North America’s Free-Trade Area and Its Impact on Agriculture, February 2015.
Friday, April 17, 2015
Global ending stocks of most agricultural commodities, including feedgrains, oilseeds, wheat, and cotton are expected to reach multi-year highs in 2015. Ample supplies are reflected in prices that are well below the record levels of just a few years ago. Rice is an exception, with global ending stocks projected to decline for the second year in a row to reach their lowest level since the 2009/10 marketing year (August/July). At the same time, global use continues to grow, led by consumption growth in China, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and several other nations. As a result, the global stocks-to-use ratio is projected at just over 20 percent, the lowest it has been since 2007/08, a time when international concern over high commodity and food prices led several of the world’s leading rice producing and consuming countries to restrict exports and increase government-owned rice reserves. These actions resulted in a rapid rise in global rice prices and reduced trade. Today, even though global stocks are approaching levels that prompted substantial trade restrictions in early 2008, prices are lower and global rice trade remains at near-record levels. This chart is from the April 2015 Rice Outlook.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Wheat is the primary food staple across much of northern India. Government policy interventions have generally kept domestic prices more stable than world prices (represented by the U.S. wheat price), particularly since the 2008 global price spike. Indian policies provide growers with Minimum Support Prices (MSPs), distribute wheat procured at the MSP to consumers at subsidized prices, subsidize storage of operational and buffer stocks, and regulate imports and exports through periodic trade bans and quotas. Low domestic stocks and rising world prices led India to boost wheat MSPs and limit exports during 2007-2009 but by 2012, the accumulation of surplus stocks led to the return of private sector exports. The increase in domestic wheat prices that occurred between 2007 and 2010 was much smaller than the more than 30 percent rise in domestic rice prices. ERS research using Indian household data indicates that, compared with Indian rice consumers, wheat consumers were more able to maintain consumption of wheat and other foods during the 2007-2010 period. This is an updated version of a chart that can be found in Coping Strategies in Response to Rising Food Prices: Evidence from India.
Friday, March 20, 2015
In recent years, growth in U.S.-China agricultural trade has accelerated. During calendar years 2012-13, U.S. exports of agricultural products to China averaged $25.9 billion per year—a tenfold increase from the late 1990s. Sales to China doubled during 2004-08 and doubled again during 2008-12, while the share of U.S. agricultural exports going to China rose from about 3 percent during the 1990s to 18 percent during 2012-13. China became the largest overseas market for U.S. farm products in 2010. U.S. imports of agricultural products from China rose at a slower pace, reaching $4.4 billion in 2013—agriculture is one of the few sectors where the United States has a trade surplus with China. During 2012-13, the United States accounted for over 24 percent of China’s agricultural imports by value and was its leading supplier of oilseeds, cotton, meat, cereal grains, cattle hides, distillers’ dried grains (mainly used for animal feed), and hay. Soybeans account for more than half of the total value of U.S. agricultural exports to China, averaging $14.1 billion during the 2012-13 calendar years, and are also the largest U.S. export of any type to China, accounting for about 11 percent of the value of total U.S. exports to China. This chart is based on the ERS report, China’s Growing Demand for Agricultural Imports.
_450px.png?v=2508.8 "Productivity rises in global agriculture")
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
By using new technologies, farmers can produce more food using fewer economic resources at lower costs. One measure of technological change is total factor productivity (TFP). Increased TFP means that fewer economic resources (land, labor, capital and materials) are needed to produce a given amount of economic output. However, TFP does not account for the environmental impacts of agricultural production; resources that are free to the farm sector (such as water quality, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity) are not typically included in TFP. As a result, TFP indexes may over- or under-estimate the actual resource savings from technological change. Growth in global agricultural TFP began to accelerate in the 1980s, led by large developing countries like China and Brazil. This growth helped keep food prices down even as global demand surged. This chart uses data available in International Agricultural Productivity on the ERS website, updated October 2014.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Japan is one of the largest markets for U.S. agricultural exports, and the United States has long been its largest supplier. However, in recent years the total value of U.S. agricultural exports to Japan has stagnated (in real terms) and the U.S. share of Japan’s agricultural imports has declined. U.S. exports to Japan of some major products—such as soybeans and fruits/preparations—are down since 2000, and others, such as wheat and corn, have remained flat. Japanese imports of U.S. pork are an exception, with strong growth over the last 15 years. The decline in the U.S. share of Japan’s agricultural imports reflects greater competition from competing suppliers, especially in South America and Asia. Japan has expanded its imports of soybeans, soy meal, poultry meat, and grains from South America; palm oil, rubber, and poultry meat from Southeast Asia; soy meal from South Asia; and alcoholic beverages and processed foods from nearby South Korea. Nevertheless, the United States remains Japan’s largest supplier of agricultural products despite trade policies there that maintain a high level of protection for domestically produced products such as wheat and rice and many consumer-ready foods. This chart is from “Japan, Vietnam, and the Asian Model of Agricultural Development and Trade,” in Amber Waves, February 2015.
Friday, February 20, 2015
U.S. fruit and vegetable trade with Canada and Mexico has increased more than 380 percent since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Canada and Mexico now account for over half of all U.S. trade in fruits and vegetables, up from 37 percent in 1994. Over the same period, the share of U.S. fruit and vegetable trade with South America and Central America has remained relatively steady, while the share accounted for by Asia and the EU declined considerably. Mexico’s annual exports of fruit and vegetables to the United States (including juice) have more than tripled during the NAFTA period, approaching $9.4 billion in 2013. These exports have their roots in the development and growth over the past half century of a Mexican fruit and vegetable sector that is oriented toward the U.S. market. Annual U.S. fruit and vegetable exports to Mexico have more than tripled under NAFTA, reaching about $1.4 billion in 2013 and benefitting from the rapid expansion of Mexico’s supermarket sector, including several U.S. supermarket chains that operate there. At the same time, trade liberalization and broader use of greenhouse technology in Canada has allowed U.S. imports of fruit and vegetables from Canada to grow from $213 million in 1988 to $3.1 billion in 2013. Canada has long been a large market for the U.S. fruit and vegetable industry. During the NAFTA period, U.S. fruit and vegetable exports to Canada have grown from less than $2 billion in 1993 to $5.8 billion in 2013. The chart is from the report, NAFTA at 20: North America’s Free Trade Area and its Impact on Agriculture.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
As China enters a new phase of its economic development, its demand for higher-valued products like meat and dairy products is growing rapidly. China’s imports of meats during 2013-14 were more than double the volume imported during the early 2000s. Growing demand and higher prices of domestic meat products have driven the growth in China’s meat imports over the past few years. China’s meat imports have shifted from items like chicken feet and animal offal to muscle meat, as living standards rose and China opened its market to more beef and mutton imports. The U.S. is currently the top supplier of China’s poultry and pork imports. U.S. exports of meat, dairy products, and other consumer-oriented products, such as fruits, nuts, and wine to China rose from $234 million in 2000 to $3 billion in 2013, comprising nearly 12 percent of the value of total U.S. agricultural exports to China that year. The growth in China’s meat imports could mean new opportunities for U.S. exporters. This chart is based on the ERS report, China’s Growing Demand for Agricultural Imports.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Agricultural trade among the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) member countries has grown since the agreement was implemented. The total value of intraregional agricultural trade (exports and imports) among all three NAFTA countries reached about $82.0 billion in 2013, compared with $16.7 billion in 1993 (the year before NAFTA’s implementation), and $8.8 billion in 1988 (the year before the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement’s (CUSTA) implementation). When the effects of inflation are taken into account, this expansion in intraregional agricultural trade corresponds to an increase of 233 percent between 1993 and 2013, compared to U.S. agricultural trade worldwide, which grew 126 percent over the same period. The vast majority of trade between these 3 nations involves the United States; U.S. agricultural trade with its 2 NAFTA partners alone reached $78.9 billion in 2013, compared with $16 billion in 1993. The expansion of U.S. trade under NAFTA reflects similar patterns of growth between exports and imports, highlighting the high degree of market integration across these nations. This chart is from the report, NAFTA at 20: North America’s Free Trade Area and its Impact on Agriculture.