This study provides a comprehensive view of the organization, management, and financial performance of U.S. broiler farms. Using data from USDA's Agricultural Resource Management Study (ARMS, formerly known as the Farm Costs and Returns Survey), we examine farm size, financial structure,...

Marketing and production contracts covered 39 percent of the value of U.S. agricultural production in 2008, up from 36 percent in 2001, and a substantial increase over 28 percent in 1991 and 11 percent in 1969. However, aggregate contract use has stabilized in recent years and no longer suggests...

Beef cow-calf production in the United States is widespread, occurring in every State. Nearly 765,000 farms, about 35 percent of the 2.2 million farms in the United States, had a beef cow inventory in 2007. Most of these were small, part-time operations. About a third of farms that raise beef...

This bulletin presents various economic time series relating to national, regional, and State farm income statistics. Data series for State-level cash receipts and production expenses by major components from 1949 to 1984 are included as well as other State-level farm income components and...

U.S farms are becoming increasingly specialized, limiting the usefulness of traditional aggregate analysis. This report identifies data limitations, advantages in estimating farm income by type of farm, and the implications of SIC-based measures. The potential relationships between the SIC type...

Crop production is shifting to much larger farms. Since government commodity payments reflect production volumes for program commodities, payments are also shifting to larger farms. In turn, the operators of very large farms have substantially higher household incomes than other farm households,...

The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (2002 Farm Act), which governs agricultural programs through 2007, was signed into law in May 2002. This report presents an initial evaluation of the new legislation's effects on agricultural commodity markets, based on sectorwide model...

National average statistics related to farm production mask the diversity in the Nation's 2 million farms and the people who operate them. Farms in the United States differ not only by size (sales and acres) and type of production, but also by organizational characteristics (land ownership,...

Farm operators in the United States operated nearly 1 billion acres of land in 1986. The average farm size was 652 acres. Sixty percent of farms reported debt, with an average of $107,000 per farm at the end of 1986. Farm operators had assets valued at $300,000 per reporting farm, with farm real...