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A Competitive Agricultural System: Recommended Data Products

Agricultural Outlook Statistical Indicators, formerly provided in Agricultural Outlook magazine, provide data on individual commodities, the general economy, agricultural trade, farm income and expenses, farm prices, food prices and expenditures, and other statistical indicators of the food and agriculture system.

Agricultural Policy

Farm Program Acres allows downloading and mapping of county-level farm program and planted acreage data for nine major program crops (corn, grain sorghum, barley, oats, wheat, rice, cotton, peanuts, and oilseeds).

Season-Average Price Forecasts provides three Excel spreadsheet models that use futures prices to forecast the U.S. season-average price and counter-cyclical payment rate for corn, soybeans, and wheat. Users can view the model forecasts or create their own forecast by inserting different values for futures prices, basis values, or marketing weights.

Domestic Topics (includes U.S. Trade)

Feed Grains Database is a queriable database that contains monthly, quarterly, and annual data on prices, supply, and use of corn and other feed grains. This includes data published in the monthly Feed Outlook and the annual Feed Yearbook reports.

Wheat Data contains statistics on the five classes of wheat—hard red winter, hard red spring, soft red winter, white, and durum—and rye. Includes historical data previously published in the annual Wheat Yearbook.

Commodity Costs and Returns have been estimated for major field crop and livestock enterprises each year since 1975. Cost and return estimates are reported for the United States and major production regions for corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, grain sorghum, rice, peanuts, oats, barley, sugar beets, milk, hogs, and cow-calf.

Farm Business and Household Survey Data: Customized Data Summaries from ARMS (the Agricultural Resource Management Survey) is a web-based data delivery tool that provides information on farming practices, commodity production costs and returns, the economics of the farm business, the structure of American farming, and the characteristics of the American farm household. This tool provides centralized access to all ARMS data, including those previously provided in the Farm Financial Management and Crop Production Practices data products.

Farm Income provides farm income forecasts, updated regularly, and farm income estimates, released once a year. Forecasts are developed using an economic accounting model that generates forecasts of value-added and farm income, plus component accounts of cash receipts and production expenditures, for the national farm sector. Estimates are derived from survey data gathered by USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and other national institutions over the course of the year.

Farm Balance Sheet accounts include assets, debt, and equity, where equity equals assets minus debt, and are used to assess wealth in the farm sector. Both operators' and landlords' shares of the assets and debt for the farming operation are included. The financial ratios presented provide useful indicators of farm sector financial performance.

Agricultural Productivity in the United States provides estimates of productivity growth in the United States for 1948-2006, and estimates of productivity growth and relative productivity levels across States for 1960-2004.

Organic Production provides data on organic operations and acreage for crops and livestock at the national and State levels. Organic farming has been one of the fastest growing segments of U.S. agriculture for over a decade, and all 50 States in the United States have some certified organic farmland.

Procurement and Contracting by Organic Handlers provides information on procurement practices and use of contracts by certified organic handlers (packers, shippers, manufacturers, processors, brokers, and distributors). Procurement information includes basic firm characteristics, their purchasing habits, and their relationship with suppliers. Contracting information includes the use of written and verbal contracts with their suppliers.

Livestock and Meat Trade Data contains monthly and annual data for imports and exports of live cattle, hogs, sheep, and goats, as well as beef and veal, pork, lamb and mutton, chicken meat, turkey meat, and eggs. The tables report physical quantities, not dollar values or unit prices. Data on beef and veal, pork, and lamb and mutton are on a carcass-weight-equivalent basis. Breakdowns by country are included.

Foreign Agricultural Trade of the United States (FATUS) provides U.S. agricultural exports and imports, volume and value, by country, by commodity, and by calendar year, fiscal year, and monthly, for varying periods, such as 1935 to the present or 1989 to the present. Derived State export value data are also available. Updated monthly or annually.

International Topics

China Agricultural and Economic Data contains official Chinese statistics collected by ERS on agricultural production, food consumption, price indexes, macroeconomic data, and industrial output.

Agricultural Exchange Rate Data Set contains annual and monthly data for exchange rates important to U.S. agriculture. It includes both nominal and real exchange rates for 80 countries (plus the European Union) as well as real trade-weighted exchange rate indexes for many commodities and aggregations.

International Macroeconomic Data Set provides data for real (adjusted for inflation) Gross Domestic Product, population, real exchange rates, and other variables for the 35 countries and 22 regions that are most important for U.S. agricultural trade.

Production, Supply, and Distribution (PS&D) contains official USDA data on production, supply, and distribution of agricultural commodities for the United States and major importing and exporting countries. The database provides projections for the coming year and historical data for more than 200 countries and major crop, livestock, fishery, and forest products.

WTO Agricultural Trade Policy Commitments Database contains data on implementation of trade policy commitments by WTO member countries. Data on domestic support, export subsidies, and tariffs are organized for comparison across countries. This queriable database offers various options for viewing and downloading data.

Agricultural Market Access Database (AMAD) provides data and information on WTO member countries regarding tariff schedules, tariff bindings, applied tariff rates, import quantities, notifications to the WTO on countries' commitments, and other data useful in analyzing market access issues in agriculture.

More Data

For more, see these sections of the ERS data catalog.

 

For more information, contact: Molly Garber or Marca Weinberg

Web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov

Updated date: August 3, 2009