Dear NFS-L list users,

 

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And, just to show you how valuable a resource Amber Waves is, below is the TOC of this month’s issue.

 

Have a great weekend!

/as

 

• Mexico Emerges as an Exporter of Beef to the United States

by Rachel Johnson and Amy Hagerman

Mexico has historically been a top export market for U.S. beef, but in 2003, it emerged as an important source of beef imports for the United States. U.S. beef imports from Mexico at least doubled in 2010 and 2011.

Markets and Trade

• Brazil’s Agricultural Productivity Growth Spurred by Research

by Constanza Valdes and Nicholas Rada

Over the last 25 years, Brazil emerged as a major agricultural producer and exporter, with agricultural production rising 77 percent between 1985 and 2006. Domestic reforms helped the country achieve economic and financial stability. That stability, as well as government investments in infrastructure and agricultural research, led to increases in agricultural productivity and expansion of cultivated area.

• Water Constraints Shape Long-Term Prospects for Wheat Production in Afghanistan

by Suresh Persaud

Although wheat yields over the last 20 years reached record highs under favorable weather conditions, wheat production in Afghanistan is extremely sensitive to variations in precipitation. During the main growing months, rainfall is scarce and farmers depend on irrigation. And decades of war and conflict have left much of the country’s irrigation system in a state of disrepair. These conditions limit growth in wheat area, which, in turn, limits growth in output.

• Retail Dairy Prices Respond Differently to Farm Milk Price Shocks

by Donald Blayney and Hayden Stewart

ERS derived the farm value of whole milk and Cheddar cheese and then estimated models to measure the response of retail prices to changes in these farm values. Model results revealed that farm milk price shocks are not transmitted instantaneously to retail for either dairy product. The nature of price transmission is also very different for whole milk and Cheddar cheese.

• How Much U.S. Meat Comes From Foreign Sources?

by Kenneth Mathews, Rachel Johnson, and Keithly Jones

While it is relatively easy to track the amount of meat imported by the U.S. and the number of livestock that enter the U.S., it is more difficult to estimate the amount of meat produced in the United States from animals that originated abroad. ERS estimates show the share of domestic production attributed to foreign-born animals is significant and trending upward.

Diet and Health

• Trans Fats Are Less Common in New Food Products

by Ilya Rahkovsky

The Federal Government has taken two policy approaches to help Americans reduce trans fats in their diets: publicizing the health risks and requiring food manufacturers to label the trans fat content of foods. ERS found that food manufacturers responded to the labeling requirements, nutritional advice from health officials, and national media coverage by reducing the trans fats in their products.

• Food Processing Costs Per Food-at-Home Dollar Rose Sharply in 2009 and 2010

by Patrick Canning

In 2010, about 35 cents from each dollar that U.S. consumers spent on food at grocery and other retail foodstores went to food processing establishments like flour mills, meatpacking plants, and dairy processors. This equates to an increase of around 14 percent since 2007, when the share was about 31 cents per dollar spent.

• Healthy Foods Not Necessarily More Expensive Than Less Healthy Foods

by Andrea Carlson and Elizabeth Frazao

Healthy foods are perceived to be more expensive than less healthy foods, a belief perhaps fueled by studies showing that healthy foods are more expensive per calorie. This is not surprising, as less healthy foods tend to be higher in calories than healthy foods, and the price-per-calorie metric does not account for total calories consumed. ERS measured the prices of over 4,000 foods using three price metrics and found that prices for each food category varied depending on the metric used.

• U.S. Per Capita Availability of Chicken Surpasses That of Beef

by Jeanine Bentley

According to ERS’s food availability data, Americans consumed 58 pounds of chicken per person on a boneless, edible basis in 2010, and for the first time, chicken surpassed beef as the most consumed meat in the U.S. Chicken consumption began its upward climb in the 1940s and has doubled. since 1970.

Resources and Environment

• Improving Water-Use Efficiency Remains a Challenge for U.S. Irrigated Agriculture

by Glenn Schaible and Marcel Aillery

In 2007, irrigated agriculture accounted for 55 percent of the total value of U.S. crop sales (including fruit and vegetable production) while also supporting the livestock and poultry sectors. The economic health and sustainability of irrigated agriculture will depend on the ability of producers to adapt to growing constraints on water, particularly through improved water-use efficiency.

• Baselines--Key to the Costs and Benefits of Environmental Markets

by Elizabeth Marshall and Marca Weinberg

Recently, markets have been developed that could allow farmers to generate and sell environmental credits when they adopt farming practices that improve the environment. Environmental markets use baselines to determine whether proposed improvements qualify for marketable credits, and setting baseline emissions levels is often a contentious element of market design.

Farms, Firms, and Households

• Expansion in Direct Payments Did Not Lead to More Crop Production

by Jeremy Weber and Nigel Key

The extent to which direct payments encourage agricultural production has been a point of dispute in WTO negotiations and legal cases. Recent ERS analysis, however, finds that direct payments have little effect on production decisions. A more rigorous ERS analysis accounting for farm and regional characteristics also found no evidence of direct payments having economically significant effects on production.

• Health Care Expenditures of Self-Employed Farm Households

by Hisham El-Osta and Mary Ahearn

ERS research findings suggest that farm households purchasing individual health insurance directly from private vendors are likely to spend more on health care than those with other sources of health insurance. Other things being equal, among all farm households, those without any insurance coverage had the lowest health care expenditures.

STATISTICS

Data Feature

• Middle-Income Countries Drive U.S. Agricultural Trade

by Nora Brooks and Birgit Meade

Middle-income countries, including Mexico and China, continue to grow as key partners in U.S. agricultural trade. In 2011, the United States shipped nearly half of its total agricultural exports to upper middle-income countries.

Indicators

Selected statistics on agriculture and trade, diet and health, natural resources, and rural America

On the Map: The Conservation Challenge for Sustainable Irrigated Agriculture

Nearly 57 million acres were irrigated across the United States in 2007, about 7.5 percent of all agricultural cropland and pastureland.

In the Long Run: Share of Food Spending by Source