High tariff and nontariff protection of the Indian oilseed sector imposes costs on consumers, supports an inefficient processing industry, and has led to negligible gains in oilseed output. Model-based simulations indicate that higher levels of protection would increase the burden on consumers,...

Over the last several decades, the U.S. agricultural sector has sustained impressive productivity growth. The Nation's agricultural research system, including Federal-State public research as well as private-sector research, has been a key driver of this growth. Economic analysis finds strong...

Innovation and changes in technology have been a driving force for gains in productivity growth in U.S. agriculture. USDA's Economic Research Service has developed annual indexes of agricultural inputs, outputs, and total factor productivity (TFP) for 1948 through 2004. American agriculture...

This publication presents the results of the latest (2002) inventory of U.S. major land uses, drawing on data from the Census, public land management and conservation agencies, and other sources. The data are synthesized by State to calculate the use of several broad classes and subclasses of...

Household economic well-being can be gauged by the financial resources (income/ wealth) available to the household or by the standard of living enjoyed by household members (consumption). Based on responses to USDA’s annual Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), a joint effort by the...

In fiscal 2008, the $4.6 billion of food purchased with vouchers from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) generated $1.3 billion in farm revenue. Because WIC participants would have purchased some of these foods with their own money in the absence of...

Ninety-one percent of U.S. farms are classified as small—gross cash farm income (GCFI) of less than $250,000. About 60 percent of these small farms are very small, generating GCFI of less than $10,000. These very small noncommercial farms, in some respects, exist independently of the farm...

Thirty years ago, China began implementing a series of reforms to improve efficiency in agricultural production. These, and subsequent, reforms reshaped China’s position in the world economy. China’s rapid economic development and transformation from a planned to a market-oriented economy,...

This report presents a simple methodology for calculating cross-price elasticities across countries, using the Frisch own-price elasticity. Cross-price elasticities are calculated for 9 major consumption categories from the 1996 International Comparison Program data across 114 countries. The...

Methane digesters—biogas recovery systems that use methane from manure to generate electricity—have not been widely adopted in the United States because costs have exceeded benefits to operators. Burning methane in a digester reduces greenhouse gas emissions from manure management. A policy...