Economic Research Service

Family farms remain an essential feature of agriculture in the United States. Family farms make up 99 percent of America’s 2.1 million farms and 89 percent of agricultural production. Most farms in the United States are small: 90 percent are small family farms that operate nearly half of America’s...

Today is National Ag Day, a day to recognize the role of American agriculture in our daily lives and the efforts of those who shape the American food system. The average American farmer feeds approximately 144 people worldwide, and with agriculture being our number one export, agriculture is...

The Economic Research Service (ERS) has, since the late 1970s, reported annually on food security in a number of developing countries. A key indicator is the number of food-insecure people (those who each consume less than a nutritional target of 2,100 calories per day). In the latest report, we...

Most people who are interested in local food know that farmers markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) are great ways to buy products from local farms and vendors. But are there other ways that local food moves from producers to consumers? It turns out that a great variety of food supply...