ERS U.S. farm resource regions

USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) recently constructed a new set of regions depicting geographic specialization in production of U.S. farm commodities. The new regions recognize both new capabilities and standards in the resolution of relevant data, and overcome some longstanding problems with the older USDA Farm Production Regions. The new ERS regions are derived from four sources: the Farm Production Regions, a cluster analysis of U.S. farm characteristics (Sommer and Hines), the USDA Land Resource Regions, and National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Crop Reporting Districts.

Data presented by ERS Farm Resource Regions are linked here.

background
County clusters, based on types of commodities produced, have shown that a few commodities tend to dominate farm production in specific geographic areas that cut across State boundaries. The climate, soil, water, and topography in localized geographic areas tend to constrain the types of crops and livestock that will thrive there.

The older Farm Production Regions, in following State boundaries, necessarily group unlike areas together because a single State often encompasses different soils and typography. For example, the old Appalachian Region, comprised of Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia, contains the Appalachian mountains, Piedmont, and Coastal Plain areas, all of which have quite different agriculture.

In constructing the new regions, ERS analysts identified where areas with similar types of farms intersected with areas of similar physiographic, soil, and climatic traits, as reflected in USDA's Land Resource Regions. ERS analysts then conformed these intersecting areas to follow the boundaries of NASS Crop Reporting Districts (CRD), which are aggregates of counties. With more and more data available at the county level, geographic representations need no longer be constrained to follow State boundaries.

The new Farm Resource Regions, by more accurately portraying the geographic distribution of U.S. farm production, will help analysts and policymakers better understand economic and resource issues affecting agriculture.

For information about how to aggregate county-level and CRD-level data to the Farm Resource Regions, refer to this Read-Me file.

links for more information
U.S. Land Resource Regions and Major Land Resource Areas Map.

U.S. farm resource regions

data presented by ERS farm resource regions

commodity costs and returns

farm financial management data

household financial characteristic data

farm structural characteristic data

environmental quality incentives program data

farm and farm-related employment data

for more information, contact: Joseph Cooper
web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov
page updated: October 8, 2003