Traders Question USDA Data

Staffing cuts at the National Agricultural Statistics Service have reduced its workforce by more than a third, raising questions about the reliability of USDA data. Crossroads Co Op Regional Manager Brian Irey explains how the loss of both entry-level and senior staff is impacting reporting and why it's becoming a growing concern.

“I don't think that they have the coverage that they need to be able to arrive at accurate numbers. The corn balance sheet is a mess. It is an absolute disaster. And feed demand, in my opinion, in the current balance sheet, is overestimated by 400 to 500 million bushels. And it comes down to when they determine those numbers, there is a percentage that generally goes into every bucket, whether it's ethanol exports, feed, and residual. And I think what they've done is very large crop last year, very large supply. They just have kept dumping into those buckets when we don't have the animal units to feed, the amount of corn that they're projecting that we're going to, and it's going to come back and kick us in the backside here at some point.”

Irey says there is still a significant amount of corn in the Midwest and West, with USDA estimating 200 million more bushels in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas than a year ago. While cattle on feed has increased by about 25,000 head, he said that imbalance is likely to weigh in on the market.