ARMS Data Utilization:
The wish list of a general farm organization
Samuel M. Funk, Economist
Illinois Farm Bureau®
A presentation to the Farm Foundation/ERS Conference
“Data to Serve 21st Century Agriculture:
Expanding the ARMS”
St. Louis, Missouri
December 4, 2003
What we want to do
Provide an accurate depiction of farms
– Financial characteristics and conditions
– Structural issues
CAFOs
Marketing challenges
Provide a baseline for examining farm-level
impacts of policy options
– Federal farm policy
– State and federal tax consequences
What we have done with ARMS
Difficulties with single-state analysis
Approximation by association
The 3-I’s
– Indiana, Illinois, Iowa
Disclosure Issues
– By state
– By farm type
Alternatives for Data Sets
Illinois Farm Business Farm Management
Assoc. (FBFM)
Kansas Farm Management Association
(KFMA)
Detailed Financial Data
Time Series
Farm Income and Financial Characteristics
Tracking Structural/Operational Data
Self-Selected Groups, Mid-Range
Looking to the Future
Enhanced use for state-level policy
implementation
– CAFOs
– Disaster assistance
– In-state tax programs
Practical tool for considering broader use of
additional in-depth information
– Potential of extrapolating data from farm financial
record systems