This report examines the extent to which year-to-year changes in the prevalence of U.S. house-hold food insecurity can be explained by changes in the national unemployment rate, inflation, and the price of food relative to other goods and services. Data are from the 2001-12 Current Population Survey Food Security Supplements and statistics on employment and prices from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Understanding the strength and consistency of these associations can broaden understanding of how national and household economic conditions affect food insecurity. As an example, the report...

According to the U.S. Census of Agriculture, 294,000 farms operated on 10 or fewer acres in 2007. While most small acreage (SA) operations did very little farming, approximately 50,000 SA farms had gross sales of $10,000 or more in 2007; 3,600 reported grossing $500,000 or more. Thus, a limited land base does not necessarily translate into low sales. This report focuses on SA farms, especially those grossing $10,000 or more in a given year, and examines such characteristics as production strategies, types of products, sales, household income, and financial performance. The 46,000 SA farms...

In 1986, Vietnam embarked on a gradualist approach to market reform and steadily pursued trade agreements under a strategy of export-led growth. The country has since emerged as one of Asia's dynamic economies and a growing market for agri-food trade. The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is Vietnam's next step toward increased economic integration. This report provides an overview of Vietnam's agri-food sector and an analysis of its trade with potential TPP partners. Examination of Vietnam's trade and tariff structure suggests modest agricul-tural trade growth potential from the...

Although a rapidly growing developing country, India has a larger food-insecure population than all of Sub-Saharan Africa. Given the prevalence of chronic malnutrition, the Government of India spent nearly 1 percent of the gross domestic product in the past year on the Public Distribution System (PDS), its system of subsidies for food grains and other essential commodities. Despite the importance of effective food aid in the country, a large share of PDS food grains do not reach their intended beneficiaries. However, the Indian State of Chhattisgarh instituted a number of PDS reforms in the...

This report provides the latest estimates by USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) on the amount and value of food loss in the United States. These estimates are for more than 200 individual foods using ERS's Loss-Adjusted Food Availability data. In 2010, an estimated 31 percent or 133 billion pounds of the 430 billion pounds of food produced was not available for human consumption at the retail and consumer levels. This amount of loss totaled an estimated $161.6 billion, as purchased at retail prices. For the first time, ERS estimates of the calories associated with food loss are presented...

The first 50 years of the Federal crop insurance program were marked by low enrollment levels. To boost program participation, legislation in 1994 and 2000 increased premium subsidies. In the years since, the jump in enrollment coupled with high commodity prices caused significant increases in program costs. This report examines the effects of premium subsidies on the demand for crop insurance across major crops and produc-tion regions. Findings show that while increases in subsidies can induce farmers to enroll more land, they primarily encourage them to adopt higher levels of coverage on...

The recession of 2007-09, the deepest of the postwar period, has had large and long-lasting effects. Using data from the 2005-10 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, this study compares a number of measures of food intake and diet quality for the cohort of working-age adults born between 1946 and 1985. During the period, consump-tion of food away from home (FAFH) declined, as measured by total daily calories, share of daily calories, and the number of FAFH meals and snacks. At the same time, diet quality improved slightly, with a lower share of calories coming from fat and...

Data from the 2010 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) and ERS cost of production accounts present a snapshot of the production costs, production practices, and characteristics related to U.S. corn production in 2010. This study found consider-able variation in the operating and ownership costs for corn, ranging from an average of $1.74 per bushel for low-cost producers to $3.88 per bushel for high-cost producers. In 2010, high corn prices meant that most producers covered their corn production costs from harvest-month prices. The Heartland continues to be the major corn...

Since the late 1980s, multilateral and bilateral trade agreements have reduced tariff rates and worked to restrain the arbitrary use of nontariff measures, including sanitary and phytosanitary regulations. U.S. imports of fruits and vegetables have risen steadily dur-ing this period as more pathways (specific country-commodity combinations) for legal importation to the United States have gained approval, regulations for gaining import access have been streamlined, and treatment options for phytosanitary issues have been expanded. This report compares 2011 tariff rates with phytosanitary...

In the United States, climate change is likely to increase average daily temperatures and the frequency of heat waves, which can reduce meat and milk production in animals. Methods that livestock producers use to mitigate thermal stress-including modifica-tions to animal management or housing-tend to increase production costs and capital expenditures. Dairy cows are particularly sensitive to heat stress, and the dairy sector has been estimated to bear over half of the costs of current heat stress to the livestock industry. In this report, we use operation-level economic data coupled with...