State Agricultural Trade Data

The State Exports, Cash Receipts Estimates and State Trade by Country of Origin and Destination provide values of internationally traded commodities by State. Since sales of commodities to and from international trade partners are recorded at the national border and are often purchased or sold by entities operating in multiple States, the exact amount of a product produced by a State and then exported—or the portion of a container of imported products that is consumed within a specific State—is difficult to track with absolute accuracy. The USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) compiles data recorded by the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection for the State Trade by Country of Origin and Destination data set. Additionally, ERS estimates exports by State based on farm cash receipts for exported products in the State Exports, Cash Receipts Estimates data set. These data sets are generated using different methods and, therefore, may contain contradicting information. The Documentation page contains full descriptions and comparison of the methods.

State Exports, Cash Receipts Estimates

Although a State’s actual agricultural export value cannot be measured directly, ERS estimates State exports of total and selected commodities based on U.S. farm cash receipts data. State shares of U.S. farm receipts are updated annually in calculating State-level international export values. The Documentation page describes both the current cash receipts-based method and the discontinued production-based method.

The State Exports, Cash Receipts Estimates files below provide the calendar-year (i.e., January to December) State export estimates using U.S. farm receipts-based method starting in 2000, as well as the historical estimates using the former U.S. agricultural production-based method for 1990–2010. All export values are calibrated so the sum of State export estimates for a commodity category equals the total U.S. export value for that commodity.

State Trade by Country of Origin and Destination

Currently, there is no cash receipts-based method—as used for the State Exports estimates—providing a similar estimate of foreign imports at the State level. To provide comparable information regarding both imports and exports for States, ERS relies on the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census' State Data Series, which includes the State of Origin of Movement (OM) Series and the State of Destination (SD) Series. These data provide the top five agricultural import and export commodity groups, their value for each State, and the top five countries of origin (imports) or destination (exports) for each product, by fiscal quarter. The Documentation page contains a full description of the source data, method of compilation, and limitations of this data set.

Note: On March 16, 2023 machine readable csv. files of the State Trade by Country of Origin and Destination (Fiscal Quarters) data were added to the website. No other changes were made to the files.