The annual Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) is USDA's primary source of information on the financial condition, production practices, resource use, and economic well-being of America's farm households. ARMS data are essential to USDA, congressional, administration, and industry decision makers when weighing alternative policies and programs that touch the farm sector or affect farm families.

Sponsored jointly by ERS and the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), ARMS is the only national survey that provides observations of field-level farm practices, the economics of the farm businesses operating the field (or dairy herd, green house, nursery, poultry house, etc.), and the characteristics of the American farm household (age, education, occupation, farm and off-farm work, types of employment, family living expenses, etc.)—all collected in a representative sample. In short, ARMS is the mirror in which American farming views itself.

Steve Anderson is the Director of the National Ag Statistics Service in Montana and explains the purpose.

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ARMS data underpin USDA's annual estimates of net farm income, subsequently provided to the Bureau of Economic Analysis for development of annual estimates of gross domestic product and personal income. The ARMS survey fulfills a congressional mandate that USDA provide annual cost-of-production estimates for commodities covered under farm-support legislation. ARMS also provides data regarding chemical use on field crops required under environmental and food safety legislation.

A flexible data collection tool with several phases, versions, and uses, ARMS is used to:

• Gather information about the relationships among agricultural production, resources, and the environment

• Determine the costs to produce various crop and livestock commodities, and the relative importance of various production expense items

• Help determine farmers'/ranchers' net farm income and provide data on the financial situation of farm/ranch businesses, including debt levels

• Help determine the characteristics and financial situations of farm/ranch operators and their households, including information on management strategies and off-farm income

Steve Anderson talks about the history of ARMS.

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How ARMS Is Used

ARMS data are used in USDA and other government agencies in developing agricultural statistics.

Mandated Uses

ARMS data enable ERS to publish annual estimates of average income for U.S. farm operator households. Annual cost-of-production estimates for over 15 agricultural commodities are also produced from ARMS data and are used in analyzing farm commodity prices. In preparing the Annual Report on Family Farms, required by the Food and Agriculture Act of 1977, ERS draws on ARMS data for information on a host of relationships, including:

• Farm participation in agricultural programs, and the distribution of farm program payments

• Structure and organization of farms, including family and non-family ownership

• Use of new production technologies and other management practices

• Farm use of credit

• Farmers' participation in off-farm employment

• Identifying the characteristics of producers purchasing crop insurance

To meet the requirements of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 and the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, NASS collects ARMS data on field crop chemical use and publishes those data annually in Agricultural Chemical Usage Field Crops Summary. ARMS data are also the source for NASS's Farm Production Expenditures, an annual summary of U.S. and regional farm production expenditures.

ARMS production input data provide annual weights for NASS's computation of the Prices Paid by Farmers Index, used to calculate parity prices required by the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act. Parity prices help regulate some 45 fruit, vegetable, and nut Federal marketing orders. The indices are also required by the 1978 Public Range Improvement Act to calculate annual Federal grazing fees on the Nation's western public lands by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service. Milk marketing boards also depend on the price indices and expenditure data, which are also used in USDA's measures of farm productivity.

Research and Analysis

In addition to research that depends primarily on ARMS data, ARMS contributes to other research and analysis work because it provides the basic cost-of-production and supply response information on which other analyses depend.

The ARMS survey is the only source of national data to support research on farmers' decisions to adopt new technologies and to relate those decisions to the economic performance and structural attributes of farms and farm families. Technology adoption decisions being tracked in the ARMS survey include:

• Choice of bio-engineered seed

• Selection of waste management practices by livestock producers

• Use of chemical and biological pest management alternatives

• Use of information management technologies

• Use of precision technologies in crop production

Steve Anderson says the data shows big differences between livestock and crop producers.

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On February 4, 2010, Steve Anderson was a guest of Haylie Shipp on the Northern Ag Network's Noon Television Program. 

More information is available by visiting www.nass.usda.gov.