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Chapter 1. AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS

Introduction

Agriculture has long been an important part of Federal statistical programs. From early data collection programs started in the 1840's by the Census Bureau and the Commissioner of Patents, statistics for agriculture evolved to meet the information needs of the industry as it went through expansion and commercialization. Most of the early data system was developed to aid commerce because the majority of people were on farms. The common theme was that individuals, given sufficient information, would make rational production decisions leading to economic stability. The main purpose of the 19th century statistics on agriculture was to secure a fair price for the farmer and, hence, a fair cost to the consumer in the increasingly market-oriented agricultural economy.

Expansion of agricultural statistics into new areas such as prices, the parity price formula, labor supplies, farm credit, and price spreads occurred in the early part of the 1900's. World War I, the Great Depression, and continued change to a marketoriented agricultural industry brought new demands for agricultural statistics. A larger governmental role in the the life of the Nation added the need for more information on the agricultural economy by government policymakers. In response to these added needs, sector accounts on income, expenditures, debts and assets were developed, forecasting and analytical efforts were increased, and current conditions in agriculture were analyzed on a regular basis.

The agenda for agricultural policy makers has continued to expand since the 1940's. The development and general economic condition of rural communities became an important topic as the number of people making a living from farming declined. The performance of the entire food and fiber sector, from input suppliers through production, processing, wholesaling and retailing, has become an important policy concern for consumers. Interests of consumers in adequate supplies of food at reasonable or fair prices and the economic conditions in rural areas have merged into concerns about the economic structure and control of the farm sector. In

recent years the significantly increased importance of international markets for food and fiber and problems with the environment have created important new policy concerns for agriculture.

These broader areas of public policies affecting agriculture have created new demands for data and information. One of the major problems with the existing system of agricultural and rural statistics is that it has not kept pace with the data needs to address these broader policy issues. A second major problem is that the data system has not been updated to reflect the changing economic structure of the agricultural industry.

Major User Groups

Users of statistics on agriculture can be classified into four broad categories: production, processing and handling, consumers, and policy and research institutions. Those involved in production or supplying inputs for production are farmers and their commodity organizations, financial institutions, and companies supplying fertilizer, pesticides and other inputs. They use agricultural statistics for production and market planning and to aid orderly market operations. Commodity supply, use and price data. are very important for these business decisionmakers, just as they were when the first statistics were collected in the 1840's.

Processors and handlers are traditionally assigned that segment of the marketing chain from receipt of raw farm products to consumer. This includes such functions as transportation, storage, processing, packaging, and marketing. These data users also rely heavily on commodity statistics to aid their business decisions. The continual flow of a large variety of fresh, quality food products to consumers is greatly aided by accurate and timely commodity statistics.

Consumers includes both the organized and unorganized who wish to stretch the budget or improve the nutritional quality of the diet. Users in this category range from individual households to large foreign corporations in the U.S. market to buy agricultural products. Consumers want to appraise the equity of their cost for food and fiber products so

they are interested in economic indicators and performance measures of the food and fiber industries as well as commodity statistics.

Other institutions with interests in agricultural statistics are governments and universities, both of which are interested in the policies and programs that affect the structure and performance of the food and fiber industries and economic and social welfare of rural people. There is a vast array of natural resource, food, environmental, energy, economic and social policies and programs that regulate, support or impact in other ways on the agricultural industry and rural people. Researchers and policymakers in these public institutions are faced daily with issues that require information from the agricultural data system.

Responsible Agencies and Basic Core

Programs

The organizations primarily responsible for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of agricultural statistics are (1) the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), (2) the U.S. Department of Commerce, and (3) State departments of agriculture.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Economics, Statistics, and Cooperatives Service

The Economics, Statistics and Cooperatives Service (ESCS) serves as the primary statistical and analytical agency for the Department of Agriculture. It was recently formed from four existing agencies. These were the Statistical Reporting Service, the Economic Research Service, the Farmer Cooperative Service and the Economic Management Support Center.

The statistics divisions, which were the former Statistical Reporting Service, are USDA's principal agencies for collecting and publishing data on domestic agriculture. This includes preparation of estimates pertaining to the current year's crops, livestock, poultry, dairy, prices, and other aspects of the agricultural economy. Most of these data are collected through numerous short surveys rather than comprehensive surveys of entire farm operations. Statistics are regularly provided at the national and State level and occasionally for counties. Reports are issued containing weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual data for a wide array of commodities or other data items. This continuous flow of data on domestic agriculture is produced in a very timely manner for assistance to analysts trying to provide continuous and up-to-date appraisal of the domestic agriculture economy.

Current crop reports provide estimates of acreages farmers intend to plant in the coming season, the acres planted and harvested, production, disposition of the crop, and remaining stocks. Forecasts of yield and production are issued monthly during the growing season based on information voluntarily supplied by farmers and from counts, measurements, and observations made in sample fields by ESCS

enumerators.

Livestock and poultry reports include estimates of inventory numbers at regular intervals during the year. Reports also cover breeding intentions, births, hatchings, number on feed, wool and mohair production, numbers slaughtered, meat and egg production, and disposition and value.

Dairy reports indicate numbers of milk cows, monthly and annual milk production, and use of milk. Production of major manufactured dairy products is reported weekly, monthly, and annually.

Reports published by ESCS show prices received by farmers for nearly 200 products and prices paid for about 500 items needed for production, indexes of prices received and paid, parity prices, and season average prices of crops, livestock, and livestock prod

ucts.

Other reports by ESCS deal with farm labor and wages, fertilizer, seeds, bees and honey, mink, naval stores, cold storage holdings, and other miscellaneous agricultural products.

In addition, ESCS has been conducting a research program in the use of satellite observation techniques to provide information on the extent and type of U.S. crops. The objective of this program is to use LANDSAT to improve the efficiency of crop acreage estimates for small areas and to improve the land use stratification for area sampling frames. This program, while potentially valuable, is still in the experimental phase and is not intended, in its application, as a substitute for direct surveys.

The Economic Research Service, the former major analytical arm of USDA for economics and social science, also was made a part of the Economics, Statistics, and Cooperatives Service. These economics divisions of ESCS carry out an extensive program of current statistics, analysis, and forecasting on: supply, consumption and use of agricultural products (both domestic and foreign), farm income, price spreads and marketing costs, farm population, land tenure and use, farming practices, supply and use of production inputs, farm real estate values and transfers, farm debt and assets, and international trade. Other important areas of work are in water resource planning, environmental impact

assessment, and the economics of development of communities and services in rural areas.

Reports prepared by the economics divisions of ESCS are compiled in part from data collected by other agencies such as Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of the Interior and many areas of the Census Bureau. The broad coverage of subject matter by the economics divisions makes data from almost all other Federal departments useful to their mission. ESCS statistical estimates are also important to other agencies within and without the Department of Agriculture. One of the major examples of the latter is the use of ESCS estimates of farm income by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Department of Commerce, in estimating components of U.S. gross national product and income.

Agricultural Research Service

The Agricultural Research Service issues periodic reports on household food consumption and about once every 10 years sponsors a national survey of nutrition and food consumption. The food consumption survey, for which data has recently been collected, is of particular importance to the estimates made by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Department of Labor of the number of families in poverty and of the cost of various levels of the standard family budget.

Foreign Agricultural Service

The Foreign Agricultural Service is responsible for maintaining a worldwide agricultural intelligence and reporting system to assist U.S. agricultural industry in foreign trade. This is done through a continuous program of reporting by agricultural attaches and officers located in posts throughout the world. Reports deal with estimates of commodity supplies and use, foreign government policies, analysis of supply and demand conditions, commercial trade relationships and market opportunities.

The Foreign Agricultural Service analyzes agricultural information essential to the assessment of foreign supply and demand conditions in order to provide estimates of the current situation and to forecast the export potential for specific U.S. agricultural commodities. FAS is also responsible for determining the utility and cost effectiveness of using satellite, meteorological and climatological data to predict global production of major crops.

Despite the important and widely used statistics on foreign agriculture compiled by FAS, their major mission is not to provide statistics. FAS is a program

agency responsible for facilitating U.S. agricultural trade.

Agricultural Marketing Service

The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is another program agency of USDA that is partially involved in providing statistics. AMS operates an extensive system to collect spot market price quotations at numerous markets on a daily basis. Livestock, fruit, vegetable, grain and other commodity markets are monitored, and information is disseminated by AMS through the various news media. The purpose of this information is to assist farmers and others in making day-to-day marketing decisions.

Forest Service

The Forest Service maintains statistical information on area and condition of forest land, volume, and timber cuts, present consumption and probable future trends in requirements for forest products, costs and returns of timber growing, price and market information for forest products, and administrative statistics covering the national forests and State cooperative programs.

Administrative Statistics

Data collected by agencies in administering or monitoring their programs prove to be useful to ESCS. The Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service data on tobacco marketing, for example, is used as a check on ESCS statistics. Land use and conservation needs data from the Soil Conservation Service are important to ESCS. Other examples are livestock slaughter data from the Packers and Stockyards Administration and railroad car loading and movement data from the Department of Transportation and industry sources.

U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census

The Bureau of the Census conducts the Census of Agriculture once every five years to enumerate all farm and ranch operations in the U.S. and outlying territories. Historically, the census was conducted by interviewers. Beginning with the 1969 census, data collection has been done by mail. County, state and national level data on acreage and production for most crops grown, livestock numbers by species, sales of commodities produced, expenditures, land use, irrigation and drainage, use of purchased inputs, and economic characteristics of the farm operation are collected and published. USDA data collected from a

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