Organic milk production has been one of the fastest growing segments of organic agriculture in the United States in recent years. Despite the growing number of organic dairy operations, the characteristics of organic dairy operations and the relative costs of organic and conventional milk...

Households participating in the Food Stamp Program are increasingly headed by a single parent or two working parents. As this trend continues, more low-income households may find it difficult to allocate the time needed to prepare meals that fit within a limited budget and meet dietary...

Average yearly expenditures on food in U.S. urban households increased between 2003 and 2004. Over the period, annual per capita spending on food rose from $2,035 to $2,207. The 2004 average comprises $1,347 spent on food consumed at home and $860 spent on food consumed away from home. These...

Americans’ diets, particularly those of low-income households, fall short of Government recommendations in the quantity of fruits and vegetables consumed. Some proposals suggest that a price subsidy for those products would encourage low-income Americans to consume more of them. This study...

Researchers use Nielsen Homescan data, which provide detailed food-purchase information from a panel of U.S. households, to address a variety of important research topics. However, some question the credibility of the data since the data are self-recorded and the recording process is...

Interest in revenue-based commodity support is evident in the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 (the 2008 Farm Bill), which gives eligible producers the option of participating in the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program in return for reductions and eliminations of payments under...

An increase in the price of fruits and vegetables relative to less healthy foods could reduce consumers’ incentives to purchase fruits and vegetables and result in less healthy diets. Whether such a change in relative prices and incentives has occurred in the United States is difficult to...

Will increasing the minimum wage increase food prices as well? This study shows that a simulated $0.50 increase in the minimum wage, if entirely passed on to consumers, would have increased food prices by less than 1 percent for most of the foods at foodstores and by 1 percent at eating and...

This analysis uses ACNielsen Homescan data on 1999 household food purchases from all types of retail outlets to estimate an annual retail price per pound and per serving for 69 forms of fruits and 85 forms of vegetables. Among the forms we priced, more than half were estimated to cost 25 cents...

Forecasting retail food prices has become increasingly important to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This is due to the changing structure of food and agricultural economies and the important signals the forecasts provide to farmers, processors, wholesalers, consumers, and...