In mid-April, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) announced its decision to cancel the July Cattle inventory report, Cotton Objective Yield Survey and all County Estimates for Crops and Livestock because of decreased budget levels.
Agriculture stakeholders, along with lawmakers, pushed for USDA to reconsider its decision, but the agency is moving forward with discontinuing the reports.
The Livestock Marketing Information Center and supporters, including WLJ, submitted a letter on April 15 to Troy Joshua, Agricultural Statistics Board (ASB) executive director and director of NASS’s Statistics Division, asking NASS to reconsider its decision.
Joshua replied that NASS’ budget for fiscal year 2024 is an 11% reduction from the year prior and 22% less than what was requested. NASS received a budget of $187.5 million for the fiscal year compared to $211.1 million for fiscal year 2023.
“The timing of NASS receiving the appropriated budget greatly limited the cost avoidance options to the surveys, programs and operational costs that were left in the fiscal year,” Joshua said.
He added that while NASS was conservative in its spending until the full-year appropriation was received, NASS had to make further budget adjustments to remain solvent for the remainder of fiscal year 2024.
The agency will continue to provide a monthly Cattle on Feed report, annual January Cattle report, Census of Agriculture report every five years, monthly Cold Storage report, monthly Livestock Slaughter report and monthly Milk Production report.
Public webinar
NASS also held a public Agricultural Data Webinar on May 8 to answer questions about the discontinued reports.
Lance Honig, ASB chair, said NASS received its appropriations in mid-March and discovered a fairly significant budget gap to account for through the rest of the fiscal year. Honig said the agency reduced travel and training costs and completely stopped efforts to modernize aging agency systems to minimize the effect on customers but was unable to cut enough expenses to keep the now discontinued programs.
Joshua and Honig said the reports’ biggest expenses come from data collection and conducting surveys. To reinstate the July Cattle report would cost $550,000, while reinstating the county estimates reports would total $7 million.
Tanner Beymer, senior director of government affairs at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, asked whether NASS considered cutting some information from the January report as opposed to totally eliminating the July report. Honig replied that adjusting January report data would have little effect from a budgetary standpoint as the greatest costs come from carrying out and reporting surveys.
Another webinar attendee voiced concern regarding whether decreased information from discontinuing the reports will lead to price exploitation. Honig responded that NASS recognizes the value and importance of all the information they publish, and it is not their desire to stop producing the reports, but the agency is restricted by the budget. He noted that the exploitation concern was recognized and taken into account. — Anna Miller, WLJ managing editor
