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Opinions vary concerning USDA crop condition ratings
Opinions vary about the value of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) crop condition ratings released weekly by the agency. AgriVisor market analyst Dale Durchholz questions the accuracy of the crop ratings. He tells Brownfield subjectivity in determining the ratings leaves room for error.
“We had low crop condition ratings, or relatively low crop condition ratings, and then came out with a yield when NASS started to do their official crop reports themselves that was a lot higher than what the condition ratings had implied,” said Durchholz, at a USDA Data Users meeting in Kansas City Tuesday.
There are many people who depend on the crop condition ratings, according to Lance Honig, chief of the NASS Crops Branch in Washington, D.C., but he adds that it’s been a year when visual surveys easily leave a different impression.
“If you literally just visually look at the crop, it doesn’t look as good as it actually is,” Honig said, during an interview with Brownfield Ag News Tuesday. “So that’s what you’ll see when you look at condition ratings; they’re a bit lower than what the actual yield is this year.”
The comments from Durchholz questioning the value of crop condition ratings were part of an open forum during the meeting soliciting questions and comments from USDA data users. Others expressed opinions that ranged from neutral to supportive of crop condition ratings.
Honig says there are no plans to discontinue the ratings, normally reported on Monday afternoons.
“There are still a lot of folks out there who see value in crop condition ratings,” said Honig. “At least at this point, I expect us to publish those weekly.”
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