As part of its ongoing research into agricultural policy and natural resource use, the Resources and Technology Division of USDA's Economic Research Service developed the U.S. Agricultural Resources Model (USARM). This partial equilibrium, comparative static programming model provides estimates of impacts on the location, production, and prices of principal crops, commodity program participation, and the use of agricultural inputs, resulting from changes in resource constraints, prices, and policy parameters. USARM is data intensive and draws information from various sources. From time to time, the data underlying the model must be updated so that policy analysis results will reflect prevailing conditions. This report describes the procedures to construct and update the USARM data base. Data descriptions, sources, assumptions, and computational procedures used to merge and organize the data are explained in detail.
