Yongyu Zhu

Professor Sterling Thomas

STAT-515-P08
10/26/2018
Midterm Report——About Agricultural Export Earning for US States

With the development of free trade in the world, U.S. and global trade is greatly

affected by world markets, including changes in the world's population, economic

growth and incomes. For agricultural trade, affected factors include global supply,

prices, government support and policies. However, the value of a country's actual

agricultural exports is hard to calculate directly. According to the USDA [1], “USDA’s

Economic Research Service (ERS) estimates State exports of total and selected

commodities based on U.S. farm-cash-receipts data”. Thus, I collect agricultural export

data for US States to analyze the status quo of exports.

 First, I made a comparative analysis of the data in 2015 and 2016. The bar chart

shows the state's agricultural export earnings and rankings. The top ten exporters of

agricultural exports have consistently been California, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota,

Nebraska, Texas, North Dakota, Kansas and Indiana.

Then, I did an in-depth analysis of the top 10 states. Between 2015 and 2016,

California had the highest agricultural export earnings, with total revenue reaching

$44.44 billion. Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska and Texas also top the list.

According to the chart, the largest exporter of animal products is Iowa, and the largest

supplier of dairy products is California. In addition, Texas, one of the biggest beef

exporters. The top three exporters of plant products are California, Illinois and Iowa.
California exports a range of vegetables, while Illinois and Iowa sell soybeans, corn

and feed.

Through the analysis, I have learned about the export revenue of the top ranked

states and the main export products. However, that doesn't meet my curiosity about

exports for other states. Therefore, I used mircomap for analysis. Through analysis, I

got the following points: first of all, we can see from the figure that there is basically a

linear relationship between animal, plant and grain products. In general, where animal

products are exported the most, so are the exports of other products. Secondly, the states

with large agricultural exports are mainly located in the central and western regions. It

may be related to climate, geography and transportation.

To sum up, these data not only help me understand the export revenue for US
States, but also let me know which products are mainly exported from the States.

However, I don't know the specific reasons from these data. Therefore, I hope that I can

continue my study in the future.

 References
[1] United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. “State Export
Data”. Internet: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/state-export-data/ , Oct.
25, 2019