Yes, by value: U.S. agricultural imports exceeded exports by $41 billion in calendar year 2025, according to USDA. USDA’s May 2026 outlook also forecast a $29.0 billion agricultural trade deficit for fiscal 2026. Those figures describe the value of imports and exports—not whether the United States still produces food or exports it. The 2022 headline about salad, wine and time referred to a long-range projection, not a claim that the country had already become a net importer.
What the 2022 headline predicted
Chuck Abbott’s February 21, 2022 article, “A salad, a glass of wine, a bit of time and U.S. will be a food importer,” described a USDA long-term projection that rising demand for fresh foods throughout the year, wine and other drinks would increase agricultural imports. It was a forecast about the relative value of imports and exports, not a prediction that U.S. farms would stop supplying food. The listing does not provide enough detail to treat that projection as a year-specific result or to compare it directly with later trade statistics.
What the latest reported and forecast figures say
USDA reports that the value of U.S. agricultural imports exceeded exports by $41 billion in calendar year 2025. That is an observed annual trade deficit, not the same measure or period as USDA’s fiscal-year outlook.
| Period and status | Exports | Imports | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calendar 2025, reported by USDA | Less than imports by $41 billion; exact export value not stated in the cited USDA summary. | $212 billion | $41 billion deficit |
| Fiscal 2026, USDA ERS/FAS forecast published May 28, 2026 | $176.5 billion | $205.5 billion | $29.0 billion deficit |
USDA says 2025 imports were slightly below the 2024 record of $213 billion. The fiscal 2026 figures are a forecast and may be revised; that fiscal year runs from October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2026. Because the first row is a calendar-year result and the second is a fiscal-year forecast, they should not be read as a directly comparable year-to-year series.
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See USDA’s 2025 trade report and the May 2026 agricultural trade outlook for the respective figures and definitions.
Why imports can rise while U.S. farms remain productive
A trade deficit means imports were worth more than exports over the specified period and category. It does not mean the country imported all its food, stopped exporting agricultural products or lost its ability to produce food domestically. In the 2022 discussion of food-price exposure after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, “We have tremendous (domestic) production capacity.”
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USDA identifies year-round supply and changing consumer preferences as factors contributing to import growth. Its overview also says at least half of agricultural import growth in the prior decade was associated with horticultural products, including fruits, vegetables, alcoholic beverages, essential oils, tree nuts and nursery stock. Seasonal availability and consumer demand can therefore help explain more imports without implying that domestic production has disappeared.
USDA’s Agricultural Trade overview reports $212 billion in U.S. agricultural imports in 2025, slightly below the 2024 record of $213 billion.
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Why the food-dollar statistic is not an import measure
USDA’s food-dollar series answers a different question: how consumer spending on domestically produced food is divided between farm production and the marketing chain. For calendar year 2023, USDA estimated that 15.9 cents of each dollar went to the farm share and 84.1 cents to marketing. Marketing includes value added after the farm, such as processing, transportation and retailing; it is not a measure of imported food. The food-dollar figures therefore cannot be used to estimate import dependence or the agricultural trade balance.
USDA explains the measure in its Food Dollar Series documentation.
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