Articles Tagged with ''ERS''

USDA's Economic Research Service cited trade tensions, African Swine Fever, and weak commodity prices in trimming its export sales forecast for fiscal 2019 by $4.5 billion.  

The USDA proposal to relocate the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the Economic Research Service (ERS) out of the nation’s capital and to realign the ERS to report to the Office of the Chief Economist rather than to the Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics (REE) has created an unfortunate conflict between the US Department of Agriculture and the agricultural research community. While I am a retiree and speak only for myself, this is a fight that need not and should not be.

The Agriculture Department this week releases the eagerly anticipated 2017 Census of Agriculture, which will provide fresh clues to consolidation trends in farming and measure the growth of small-scale and urban production and beginning farmers.

A USDA senior adviser acknowledged “missed opportunities to engage stakeholders” on the department’s plan to move the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture outside the Washington, D.C., area, but said the relocations would benefit both employees and taxpayers.

The Department of Agriculture has whittled down a list of locations still in the running to house USDA’s Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Net farm income should increase by about 10 percent in 2019 but will still be well below the average level for the past two decades and far under recent peaks, according to USDA's latest forecast.

Editor's note: This is the third in our seven-part in-depth editorial series where we look ahead at “Farm & Food 2040.” Part three looks at how the failure to pass meaningful immigration reform is fueling adoption of the newest technologies in automation—primarily robotics—to stem the need for immigrant farmworkers. And we also feature new research identifying the "Farmer of the Future."

I was stunned when I saw the USDA announcement that they were moving their food, agriculture and economics research agencies outside of Washington, DC.

USDA today forecast net farm income for this year at $65.7 billion, up from a February projection but down $9.8 billion, or 13 percent, from 2017, when the broad measure of farmland profits increased nearly 23 percent.