Citing budget restrictions, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is proposing to discontinue the July Cattle inventory report, along with the Cotton Objective Yield Survey and all County Estimates for Crops and Livestock reports beginning with the 2024 production year.
“The decision to discontinue these surveys and reports was not made lightly, but was necessary, given appropriated budget levels,” NASS said in a news release. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) called on USDA to reverse its decision. “While it may be politically expedient to blame appropriators in Congress for today’s decision, cattle producers know better than to believe discontinuing a handful of reports will result in substantive cost savings for the Department,” NCBA Vice President of Government Affairs Ethan Lane said in a statement.
NASS also conducts a program review every five years following the Census of Agriculture and is proposing changes to livestock programs.
NASS plans to reduce the number of published states from the Cattle inventory report from 50 states to 31 states, but will still publish all cattle and calves inventory, cows inventory and calf crop for the excluded 19 states. NASS also plans to remove Minnesota as a published state in the monthly Cattle on Feed report and group the state in the “Other States” category.
USDA will be hosting a spring meeting on April 16 to discuss changes, which will be open to the public. For details on registering for the virtual meeting, visit tinyurl.com/4r78cecv.
