
Trade of agricultural goods
The United States is a major player in the global trade of agricultural products. In 2021, exports of agricultural products were worth some 172 billion U.S. dollars. The most important countries of destination were China, Canada, and Mexico. Conversely, imports worth around 163.3 billion U.S. dollars made their way into the United States that same year. The principal countries/regions of origin were Canada, the European Union, and Mexico.Agricultural production
Farming also involves significant production costs. A closer look at the composition of these costs shows that feed made up the largest share, followed by costs associated with farm services, livestock and poultry. Labor accounted for just 9.4 percent of farm expenditure in the U.S. in 2021.Over the last decade, the issue of genetic engineering has increasingly been on the agenda. The United States has by far the highest acreage of genetically modified crops worldwide. Some crops have a very high share of GM crops per species. For example, in 2020, some 94 percent of all soybeans planted in the U.S. were genetically modified to be herbicide tolerant.