The U.S. Department of Agriculture has published a new report showing agricultural exports by state.
How do they do it? The report explains:
Although a State’s actual agricultural export value cannot be measured directly, USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) estimates State exports of total and selected commodities based on U.S. farm-cash-receipts data. State shares of U.S. farm receipts are updated annually in calculating State-level export values to foreign countries. ERS has discontinued updates of an alternative fiscal-year (October to September) series of State export estimates based on State and commodity shares of production, but continues to provide the historical estimates based on that methodology. The Documentation page describes both the current cash-receipts-based method and the discontinued production-based method.
The farm commodities and products for which State-level exports are estimated reflect the commodity coverage of published cash receipts calculated at the State and national levels. The commodity coverage for exports includes 24 categories, as well as aggregate estimates for animal products and plant products and total agricultural exports. Exports that do not have their own category are grouped into “Other livestock products” or “Other plant products.” The generally large export value of “Other plant products” is due to the number of processed agricultural products (such as confections and prepared foods) whose ingredients cannot easily be identified among the listed categories. This large group also includes sugar, essential oils, planting seeds, cocoa and coffee products, and beverages.
The files below provide the calendar-year (January to December) State export estimates using the new U.S. farm-receipts-based method starting in 2000, as well as the historical estimates using the former U.S. agricultural-production-based method for 1990-2010. All export values are calibrated so that the sum of State export estimates for a commodity category equals the total U.S. export value for that commodity.
TK: It is complicated, then. I’ve pulled out data on fresh fruits and fresh vegetables to highlight. Of course, California shines as the top state for all fresh produce exports, as illustrated by graphs below.
