The Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) is an ongoing program surveying U.S. farms in the 48 contiguous States and covering specific commodities on a rotating basis.

farm coverage

Information about farm businesses and farm operator households is collected each year in the whole-farm portion (phase III) of the survey.

The target population for this portion of ARMS is the official USDA farm population in the 48 contiguous States, which is defined as "all establishments except institutional farms that sold or would normally have sold at least $1,000 of agricultural products during the year." Institutional farms are not considered part of the ARMS target population.

commodity coverage

Commodity specific information is collected on a rotating basis in both the whole-farm (phase III) and field-level (phase II) portions of the ARMS survey. Production practice data for major crop and livestock activities (corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, dairy, pork, and beef) have been covered about every 3 years, while additional commodities (other feed grains, sugar crops, rice, peanuts, tobacco, and poultry) are covered less frequently. Livestock data (cow-calf, hogs, and dairy) have been collected approximately every 5 years, on a staggered rotation. In a related survey, fruits, nuts and berries and vegetables/melons were surveyed in alternate years.

A nationally representative sample of farmers is interviewed each year to obtain information on their costs and returns. Farms producing the target commodity in States that cover the major share of U.S. production of the commodity are identified. Those farmers who reported their production practices for specific commodities are also contacted to obtain information on their costs and returns, including data needed to estimate the costs of production associated with their production practices. Commodity coverage, the share of production covered, and the number of States covered have decreased as budgets remained constant or shrank.

States included

The States included in the survey each year are varied, depending on the crops surveyed and to help minimize respondent burden. Field-level data collected in ARMS phase II surveys do not represent the total U.S. acreage of each crop surveyed. For example, in 2000 the States included in the survey accounted for 93 percent of corn, 95 percent of soybeans, 94 percent of upland cotton, 88 percent of winter wheat, 83 percent of durum wheat, 90 percent of other spring wheat, 94 percent of rice, and virtually all sugarbeets.

fruit and vegetable survey coverage

While not technically part of the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), a similar program collects data on production practices for fruit, nut and berry production, vegetable production, and melon production. Fruit and vegetable surveys were conducted for 63 crops in 18 major producing States between 1994 and 1999.

for more information, contact: Mitch Morehart
web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov
page updated: November 21, 2003