Ag Policy Blog
NASS Officials: $7.5 Million Needed to Bring Back July Cattle and County Yield Reports
It would take more than $7.5 million for USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to bring back the July Cattle report and the County Estimates for Crops and Livestock reports this year, NASS officials said Wednesday.
Market watchers -- including analysts and academics -- have complained about NASS announcing last month that the agency would discontinue the two surveys, as well as the Cotton Objective Yield Survey.
Late last week, 71 U.S. House and Senate members -- 59 Republicans and 12 Democrats -- also wrote Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to reverse the decision to cancel the surveys.
NASS held a webinar Wednesday for data users to highlight other NASS reports that can provide more insights into the size of the national livestock herd. NASS officials also showed some links to Farm Service Agency (FSA) acreage reports and Risk Management Agency (RMA) yield reports that could be mined for county-level yield data.
The reports were dropped because Congress cut the NASS budget by roughly 11% while the appropriation was finally approved seven months into the federal fiscal year.
Asked about the costs to restore the reports, the July Cattle report would take about $550,000 to fund while it would cost about $7 million to reinstate the county level yield report this year, said Troy Joshua, director of NASS' Statistics Division.
If the funding were restored, NASS would bring back both reports, but time is short, Joshua said.
Asked about the county-level report, Joshua said,
"We do have enough time to bring the project back, but time is ticking."
Bringing back the cotton yield survey would cost roughly in line with the costs of the July Cattle report.
Making a statement, one commentor in the webinar called the county level data for major crops supports a lot of research at both universities and private companies.
Lance Honig, chief of the Crops Branch for NASS, said NASS had faced a "fairly significant" funding gap. The agency has cut back travel, which includes less engagement with producers at some farm events. NASS also had stopped efforts to update its technology.
"We virtually stopped all efforts we have had underway to modernize our aging systems here at NASS," Honig said.
CATTLE REPORTS
NASS officials noted some of the reports they offered do not directly replace the numbers provided in the July Cattle report, which is a national estimate on the size of the cattle herd.
Some of the replacement reports include:
January Cattle report, https://www.nass.usda.gov/…
P[L1] D[0x0] M[300x250] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]
Cattle on Feed Report, https://usda.library.cornell.edu/…
Milk Production, https://usda.library.cornell.edu/…
Livestock Slaughter, https://usda.library.cornell.edu/…
Cold Storage, https://usda.library.cornell.edu/…
Dairy Products, https://usda.library.cornell.edu/…
Census of Ag, https://www.nass.usda.gov/…
LOCAL CROP DATA
NASS officials highlighted the Cropland Data Layer Program, updated in late January, https://croplandcros.scinet.usda.gov/…
NASS Disaster Analysis, https://www.nass.usda.gov/…
FSA Crop Acreage Data, released quarterly, https://www.fsa.usda.gov/…
RMA Summary of Business reports breaking down acreage and indemnities https://public-rma.fpac.usda.gov/…
RMA Information Reporting System showing yields on area insurance plans,
RMA County data is released in June. They get a lag from data reports from private insurers that makes it hard to publish those reports earlier.
The 30-minute webinar can be found here:
Also see, "Lawmakers, Others Push for USDA to Keep Surveys Despite Budget Cuts," https://www.dtnpf.com/…
Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com
Follow him on social platform X @ChrisClaytonDTN
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