摘要：Forecasting retail food prices has become increasingly important to the U.S.Department of Agriculture (USDA). This is due to the changing structure offood and agricultural economies and the important signals the forecasts provideto farmers, processors, wholesalers, consumers, and policymakers. TheAmerican food system is going through fundamental structural changes. It isunclear how these changes will affect the cyclical variation of food pricemarkups and translate into changes in retail food prices. The only governmententity that systematically examines food prices and provides food price forecasts(on an annual basis) is the Economic Research Service, an agency of USDA.This report explains the ERS procedures in forecasting food prices and assesseshow changes in the current procedures would improve the quality of the fore-casts.
