Measuring the Importance of Exports to U.S. Agriculture
Nora
Brooks
Record agricultural production and record
agricultural export values have raised the question
of how to calculate U.S. agriculture’s reliance
on exports. Because agricultural exports include
such disparate commodities as wine and wheat, defining
a common measure is challenging. A value
measure is common to all, but tends to give more
weight to high-value commodities. The importance
of a bottle of wine compared to a bushel of wheat
is then overstated. A volume measure requires
conversion to a common unit and gives more weight
to bulk commodities. It would take many bottles
of wine to equal the volume of a bushel of corn.
Clearly, combining bottles and bushels into a single
basket of exported goods is problematic.
So how does ERS measure the importance
of exports to U.S. agriculture? ERS publishes a
volume-based indicator of the export share of agricultural
production that covers only those commodities for
which both production and export volumes are available.
Thus, wines, greenhouse/nursery products, seeds,
and hides/skins, for example, are excluded. By this
measure, which is reported in the “Indicators”
section of Amber Waves, the volume of agricultural
exports as a share of production volume ranged from
21 to 23 percent over 2000-04.
U.S. producers of wheat, soybeans,
and corn are all quite dependent on trade: exports
account for close to half the volume of wheat production,
more than a third for soybeans, and almost a fifth
for corn. Among specialty crops, the export share
is highest for almonds—nearly 70 percent—and
more than 40 percent for walnuts and grapefruits.
As the leading producer of almonds and walnuts in
the world, the U.S. has a reputation for high-quality
nuts demanded for snacking and confections.
The export share is much lower
on the livestock side. Most meat and dairy products
are produced and eaten domestically. Poultry exports
are about 15 percent of production, and red meat
exports are around 10 percent of beef and pork production
on a volume basis. Disease outbreaks and related
trade restrictions continue to constrain U.S. animal-product
export markets, with cattle and beef markets affected
most.
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