Amber Waves

An official website of the United States government Here’s how you know

Adult obesity rates vary across U.S. geographic regions and rural/urban areas, suggesting the exposure to obesity-related diseases can differ from one location to the next. According to the National Institutes of Health, adults with obesity are more likely to develop heart disease, type II diabetes, some cancers, and other long-term health conditions.

Irrigation organizations operate networks of diversion structures, reservoirs, canals, ditches, and pipelines to deliver water to farms and ranches. These organizations fund the maintenance of their systems through fees for water deliveries, which are generally done in three ways: volumetric pricing, which is based on the volume of water delivered; an assessment/tax per acre of land irrigated; or a combination of the two. The fee charged can determine, in part, on-farm water conservation.

USDA’s National School Lunch Program operates in about 100,000 public and private not-for-profit schools and serves billions of meals to tens of millions of children annually. The program makes meals available to children for free, at a reduced-price, or at full price depending on their household income and size. Schools receive reimbursements from the Federal Government for each type of meal they serve, with free meals reimbursed at the highest rate and full-price meals at the lowest rate.

The USDA, Economic Research Service’s (ERS) Food Price Outlook tracks and forecasts U.S. food price changes. In recent years, food prices have been particularly volatile as economic shocks ushered in steep price increases from mid-2021 through 2022.

Southeast Asia offers growing export opportunities for U.S. agricultural products. The region (consisting of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam) is the third-largest regional market for U.S. agricultural exports and is projected to expand in income and population. This growth comes when the populations of large export markets such as China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea have begun to plateau or decline.

Rural populations are shifting older as people live longer, birth rates decline, younger people move out of rural areas, and older people decide to spend their retirement years in rural settings. By the end of 2025, the youngest of the Baby Boom generation (born between 1946 and 1964)—a large generation in total numbers—will have turned 61 and the oldest reached age 79, meaning that many are now in or looking at retirement.

As USDA’s largest land retirement program, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) pays landowners a yearly rental fee to convert highly erodible or otherwise environmentally sensitive land to vegetative cover such as native grasses. The program aims to achieve environmental benefits such as improving air and water quality, providing wildlife habitat, and sequestering carbon through land-use change. Contracts typically range from 10 to 15 years.

The gap between rural and urban mortality rates from natural causes is widening. Twenty-five years ago, natural-cause, or disease-related, mortality rates were similar for working-age adults in both rural and urban areas. However, by 2019, the natural-cause mortality rate for rural residents of prime working age (ages 25–54) was 43 percent higher than for those living in urban areas.

In livestock production cycles, herd and flock sizes go through periods of expansion followed by periods of contraction. Market prices received by producers drive these cycles as producers decide whether to expand or sell their livestock based on the prices received for cattle, hogs, and chickens. Because the factors that determine prices and other production considerations—such as the time it takes an animal to mature—the cycles differ for each type of livestock.