ERS

Formal educational attainment in rural America has grown, but still lags behind urban communities.  USDA’s Economic Research Service data shows the share of adults ages 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher increased in rural areas from 15% to 21%.  In the same time sp...

Economic Research Service publishes its price forecasts in the monthly Food Price Outlook report.  The FPO forecasts food-at-home prices will increase by 8.6% in 2023, with a prediction interval of 5.6%-11%.  Forecasts now include a midpoint and a prediction interval to represent the expected price change and range of likely prices. The pred...

New data from USDA’s Economic Research Service shows that between fiscal years 2018 and 2022, Mexico accounted for nearly 14% of all U.S. agricultural exports.  With a total value of $28 billion, Mexico is projected to be the United States’ second largest destination for U.S. agricultural expor...

The organic market has seen continued growth in retail sales in the past decade.  However, according to ERS, the pace of growth has slowed.  U.S. organic retail sales increased by an average of 8% per year and surpassed $53 billion in 2020.  In 2021, sales we...

A new report from USDA's Economic Research Service suggests ethanol demand may decline with the rise of electric vehicles.  The Global Demand for Fuel Ethanol Through 2030 report suggests that global gasoline demand is expected to stagnate over the next decade, leaving changes in blend rates as the main determinant for future changes in fuel ethanol demand. ...

“We find that the percentage of socially disadvantaged and the percentage of getting farming operations are negatively correlated with things like average lease size," noted Scott Callahan with ERS.  "And positively correlated with the percentage of rented farmland.”    ...

Retail prices for chicken wings have been trending lower in recent months, just in time for the Super Bowl and March Madness.  Previously, a combination of limited supplies and strong demand led to a historic runup in wholesale and retail prices.  ...

After earning record high incomes last year, even while dealing with an 11% hike in production expenses, the nation's farmers this year could see another increase in those expenses.  ERS head Spiro Stefanou said they expect a more modest increase of as much as 4% this year.  He adde...

According to ERS, as average paddock size increases, farmers and ranchers tend to rotate their cattle less frequently.  Rotational grazing systems rotate animals among a series of paddocks, or fenced pasture areas, allowing forage to recover before returning the cattle to graze in that spot again.   ...

In 2021, the average dollar spent by U.S. consumers on domestically produced food returned 39.4 cents as property income.  Property income is income received by owners of capital assets such as land, equipment, and intellectual property after they pay for inputs, labor, and output taxes.  Th...