Rural America At A Glance, 2012 Edition highlights the most recent indicators of social and economic conditions in rural areas for use in developing policies and programs to assist rural areas. This year's edition focuses on the U.S. rural economy, including employment trends, poverty, and...

Nearly 4 million veterans reside in rural (nonmetropolitan) America. They are a rapidly aging and increasingly diverse group of men and women who still comprise over 10 percent of rural adults despite consistently declining numbers.

Agriculture could play a prominent role in U.S. efforts to address climate change if farms and ranches undertake activities that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. These activities may include shifting to conservation tillage, reducing the...

Beginning farmers and ranchers have some unique characteristics, including more education and more off-farm jobs, compared with established farmers and ranchers.

Over the last several decades, the U.S. agricultural sector has sustained impressive productivity growth. The Nation's agricultural research system, including Federal-State public research as well as private-sector research, has been a key driver of this growth. Economic analysis finds strong...

Innovation and changes in technology have been a driving force for gains in productivity growth in U.S. agriculture. USDA's Economic Research Service has developed annual indexes of agricultural inputs, outputs, and total factor productivity (TFP) for 1948 through 2004. American agriculture...

In fiscal 2008, the $4.6 billion of food purchased with vouchers from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) generated $1.3 billion in farm revenue. Because WIC participants would have purchased some of these foods with their own money in the absence of...

Farm subsidy programs were introduced in the 1930s largely due to concern for chronically low, and highly variable, incomes of US farm households. Today commodity-based support programs are still prominent, though income and wealth of the average farm household now exceed that of the average...

A multitude of design decisions influence the performance of voluntary conservation programs. This Economic Brief is one of a set of five exploring the implications of decisions policymakers and program managers must make about who is eligible to receive payments, how much can be received, for...