The US Department of Agriculture plans to eliminate its August "objective yield" surveys for corn and soyabeans following a periodic five-year review, the government said in a statement on Tuesday. The United States is the world's top supplier of corn and the No. 2 exporter of soyabeans. The USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service revises its estimates of US corn and soyabean yields and production each month during the autumn, when crops are maturing.
The revisions are based on two sources of information: data from "objective" field surveys conducted by USDA enumerators who report on things like plant population; and data from interviews with some 20,000 farmers in major production states. The USDA will limit its objective yield surveys for corn and soyabeans to September, October and November, when crops are more fully developed.
For cotton, the USDA said it will limit its objective yield surveys in August to southern portions of Texas. "I think people are probably not going to pay as much attention to the August crop report, if they go away from their objective yield sample," said Dale Durchholz, senior market analyst with Illinois-based Agrivisor. The USDA requested public input on its review last autumn.