2017 Kansas City Data Users Meeting

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Agricultural Statistics Service

October 24, 2017

Introductions and Opening Remarks from agency representatives within USDA

Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS)

Economic Research Service (ERS)

Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS)

Farm Service Agency (FSA)

World Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB)

U.S. Census Bureau (Census), Department of Commerce

National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS)

Questions & Answers

Note: The following write-up presents a topical summary of issues discussed during the 

afternoon open forum. Material is presented in chronological order.

Attendee: About 3 years ago in Chicago, I brought up the idea that we should do away with crop 

condition ratings. I think we continue them too long until 50% of harvest. I am 

concerned about the quality of the condition reports week to week. 

NASS: There was a lot of discussion especially back in August because there seemed to be a 

much bigger divergence between our yield forecast and what the good to excellent rating 

showed this year. Conditions are based on a weekly survey that we do, we get about 

2,000-2,500 responses each week and the respondents are primarily county extension 

agents, some local FSA employees and some others. They are reporting at the county 

level, we are asking them to give us their opinion of the condition rating in their county. 

When you look at the August forecast, we are talking about a couple of other surveys that 

we are using. We reached out to about 23,000 farmers across the country and we asked 

them what do you expect your yields to be for the various crops. In addition to asking 

farmers we do the objective yield work as well, sending enumerators into fields. 

Attendee: I worry that the quality of information coming into you is not up to the standards that you 

guys have traditionally prided yourselves on. Are you confident in the quality of the data 

you get for the condition ratings? I know of 4 or 5 companies that would like to see you 

get out of the business of producing crop condition ratings. There is a substitute for it 

now that the industry did not have a number of years ago. People would have to pay for it 

but are you really providing something they wouldn’t have access to somewhere else?

NASS: I think that was probably the key though is that you would have to pay for it. We are in 

the business of leveling the playing field by making this information available to 

everyone at the same time, same place. 

Attendee: I do think we get value out of the pasture and range condition and the distribution by 

states that gives us some very good information on the calf crop throughout the year. 

Attendee: I wasn’t going to ask about crop conditions but we have had the worst rated heavy eared 

crop ever which kind of throws everything off. If you look at the standards that we use to 

create those conditions it seems extremely subjective there is no dividing point between 

excellent and good, there is no color standard on green, there is no height standard there 
is no other standard. What I have learned from running my own surveys is that you have 

to ask the same person the same exact questions. Would maybe the metrics we use to 

describe good and excellent need some revision? My other question is wasn’t the W-J 

model used in prior years for production? 

NASS: I will go in reverse order, no NASS has never used the Wescott-Jewison model. That 

model is used before NASS gets into the forecasting season by the World Board. Couple 

of comments on crop conditions. We do use the same reporters every week, that doesn’t 

mean they report every week. As far as the definitions go, yes it is very subjective but if 

you look at what we are asking it is subjective by nature. We do have to be a little careful 

about changing the definitions because the history is so valuable. You probably don’t 

care as much about the raw numbers as how do they compare to last year, how do they 

compare to the five year average, how do they compare to a similar analog year. We’re 

not opposed to looking at it but I think we would be very cautious for those reasons.

Attendee: I had a question on the Wescott model. That is used in the WASDE correct? 

NASS/WAOB: Yes, it is used before August.

Attendee: It is not used by NASS but it used in the WASDE, I just wanted to make that 

clarification. It has not been updated since 2013 is that correct?

WAOB: It is reestimated every year using last year’s weather. So it is restimated using last year’s 

July temperature, precipitation, etc. 

Attendee: But you don’t publish the updated slope coefficients?

WAOB: No we do not. 

Attendee: Can that be done for the industry.

WAOB: It’s something we can look into.

Attendee: If that model’s being updated it would be nice to know what the new coefficients are. Is 

there any thought about adding new conditioning information into the model? Genetics 

were just mentioned, ERS has information about adaption of precision ag, to see if there 

is any statistical significance in the model with that type of information. 

WAOB: We have been looking into but as of now there are no plans to do that. 

Attendee: Given the subjective nature of the condition report. I know that are a lot of people in this 

room that have spent a lot of time on the road this year and it was an ugly looking crop. I 

remember ’15 and ’16 and it was very ugly so the condition made sense. Now the 

genetics play a large role in that. It wasn’t much of a market mover but in August when 

the soybeans went up 7 and then down 6 the next week, that was a market mover and I 

don’t think you want that. 

Another comment, I hope stat chat gets out of twitter jail.

Given the fact that the National Academies report came out two weeks ago. Looking 

over the executive summary, collaboration showed up probably more than any other 

word. Is there a plan going forward on more collaboration?
NASS: To stat chat we do plan to bring that back. On the National Academy report, NASS plans 

to look at the recommendations. NASS knows that to stay relevant we have to work with 

all of our USDA partners to use all of the information that is out there. The report is not a 

surprise, we are already taking action on some of the recommendations. 

Attendee: Before I ask my question, I want to say that I am an adamant supporter of crop conditions 

so please don’t discontinue the report. We feel there is value in extended crop 

conditions. Lance, you were quoted in an article about a month ago stating that you look 

at objective yield data, survey data, and remote sensing data. Can NASS tell us the 

weighting of these 3 components in predicting crop production?

NASS: No, but there are a couple of reasons. There is no specific formula that weights them 

together. That’s part of the process that we go through and the weighting this month 

probably won’t be the same as last month. The weighting for corn may not be the same 

as the weighting for soybeans. Even if you are looking at corn this month, the weighting 

won’t be the same in Illinois as the weighting in Iowa. 

Attendee: Given the importance of the reports you put out has there been any serious consideration 

to putting the reports out when the futures markets are not open? 

NASS: We did a survey of data users several years ago asking about the release time. There was 

support in both directions. Right now I don’t think there is any evidence that supports us 

moving in either direction. If you have suggestions we are willing to listen and see if 

there is a need. 

Attendee: I think things have changed a lot with the sophistication of computer programs since that 

survey was taken. I am not talking about if you want it in the morning or the afternoon, I 

am talking about the sophistication of these programs that read the numbers and make the 

markets react more violently than if you put them out at a time where there’s opportunity 

for grain traders as well as Goldman Sachs to assess the information. Now it moves so 

quickly that sometimes you can’t even get orders filled if they are on stop orders, it’s a 

whole different world than it used to be. 

NASS: I think one of the other things we talked about at the time was that if we move than some 

of these other things will also move. 

Attendee: Regardless of release times, has the USDA done anything to improve server speeds? 

There have been times where the numbers have been released at 11:00 am but have not 

been available on the USDA or NASS website until 11:00 and 30 seconds where people 

that don’t have access to low latency feeds are at a disadvantage? 

NASS: We do evaluate when we have the reports out. Previously the report went to Kansas City 

and then back to USDA before being released, we have shortened that loop quite a bit. 

The other thing we are looking at is having more options on which report we load first. 

Attendee: There seems to be a lot of confusion from the trade when we see ear counts or pod counts 

because the graphic that gets released in the NASS report tends to have that report’s 

month correlated to final numbers rather than that historic month’s numbers. Are there 

any plans to change that so we are comparing apples to apples? 
NASS: We have not thought about doing that but maybe there is a better way of displaying that 

information. If you have any specific ideas other than subbing in those historic values, 

let me know. 

Attendee: When the August report comes out and you are looking at pod counts or ear counts, it’s a 

graphic that’s not comparing the current data point to history, it’s comparing it to final. If 

you change the graphic to saying these are the ear counts we have in September, these are 

the ear counts we have in October, and this is how the current months ear counts or pod 

counts compare to history for the current report, it seems this would be a better 

comparison because we all know those numbers change as we go through time but the 

average user of the report does not realize they are not looking at the same numbers side 

by side. 

Attendee: Is there any effort to get the GATS data in an API format similar to the FSA data. 

FAS: We are looking into doing an API for the GATS. 

Attendee: Would there be an opportunity for industry to comment on that, like deeper tariff lines, 

make sure they are available at the 10-digit code. 

FAS: Yes. 

Attendee: Related to that question, I am really happy to see that WASDE is going to release 

historical databases and keep them updated on a monthly basis. I would ask if you could 

index it. We really appreciate the spreadsheets we download from NASS and they are 

indexed very well. Not only index them but put a tab on the spreadsheet with a table of 

contents for the indexes. That dramatically helps us as we automate our analysis on those 

reports. 

The other comments I want to make go back to the crop conditions. The people I work 

with in our offices overseas would love to have a system as good as ours. It’s not perfect 

but I think this is a year where crop models built off of all 5 categories of crop ratings 

probably did a better job picking up on what is happening with the crop that those that are 

just focused on good and excellent. I really appreciate going as long as we do on ratings 

as well, in a past life I was one of the observers who filled out the report and I know how 

it is, it’s subjective. As you get into the maturity, the crops not changing but the yields are 

starting to come in and the surveyors are hearing those yields. So what I’m looking for 

now is change in ratings reflect what is happening in the yields that are coming in and 

they give me a better idea if the yields are coming in better than what we perceived or 

worse than what we perceived. 

Attendee: Question on the NASS CDL (Cropland Data Layer) datasets. I would ask that you go 

back in and review those datasets, Minnesota gained 20 million acres a couple years ago. 

It jumped from 54 million acres to 74 million acres then back to 54 million acres. It’s 

hard to rectify datasets when you have a state that is changing in size by 1/3. Missouri’s

got some data problems in that dataset and possibly even Kansas for multiple years. It’s

a dataset that’s getting a lot more use particularly grass habitat and movement of crops 

and grass and right now the dataset is almost unusable. 

NASS: Thank you for the comment. The CDLs are very interesting products but they are data 

products and you can have a problem. So if we need to dig into it, I will certainly take 

that back to our folks who work on developing it. 
Attendee: What was the percent deviation on RMA to NASS yields on average? 

FSA: I don’t know off the top of my head but we can talk later I can get the data. 

[At this point, there was a 15 minute break]

[The audio recording was delayed in recording after the break and the first question was missed. The 

recording picked up part way into the NASS response.]

NASS: ... we can’t meet with everybody, we meet with impact farmers and agribusinesses, so 

that’s one way. But another way is to make sure our message is out there and we are 

always working on that message. In addition to the Census of Agriculture using that web 

tool, we started to make it available on other surveys starting with the Milk Production 

survey and we want to expand that to all of our surveys over the next 1 – 2 years. We 

want to make it easier for respondents to respond to NASS. 

Attendee: Are you expecting the ease of being able to fill out the Census of Agriculture to outweigh 

the loss in prices we had for the August Crop report? There were a lot of people that 

weren’t too happy with that drop in prices after that release. Do you expect the response 

rate to increase for the Census of Agriculture?

NASS: I am not sure that most producers will tie those two together. First of all when you look at 

the Crop Report from August to September to October, I don’t think NASS was the one 

that was changing, I think it was the industry that was catching up with NASS. I would 

think it would help our response rate for the Census because we are showing that we are 

putting out a consistent number over time. The Census is the only tool that farmers have 

for getting county level data. There are times when we will publish data that may be a bit 

of a surprise. But it is our responsibility for all of us here to put out the very best number 

that we can. Sometimes that will have implications for participants in the marketplace. 

Attendee: On the issue of the August Crop Report. I don’t have a problem with all of the 

information that comes out of the Crop Progress and Conditions report from the point of 

view of the progress, plantings, maturity that can be analyzed very well. The response 

we got back in August was the producers thought the crop was a bit better than the crop 

conditions. Do we really need an August Crop Report? Do we have enough good data to 

analyze and know what we’ve got in August?

NASS: The farmers did tell us in August that the yields were that good. A lot of people were 

surprised by that but the farmer survey carries a lot of weight for us in August. It’s not an 

exact science how to weight those together but the general rule of thumb is earlier in the 

season the more weight you put on farmers because for objective yield [in August] we 

basically go in and count corn stalks. At least in the last five years if we focus on corn for 

a minute, the gap between August and our January numbers is within 2 percent. 

Attendee: I think that’s a good point on the August 1 Crop Report, when you are talking about only 

looking at plants for corn and soybeans I don’t think in the publication there is even a pod 

count for the first of August so there is not a whole lot of data out there. When you talk 

to farmers, they are looking at the same crop, they are not seeing any pods, they are only 

seeing tiny little ears at that point so they are giving you their best estimate. How good is 

that August 1 Crop Report?
Attendee: For us that work with the mandatory price reporting data you produce a wonderful report 

for us each week, the comprehensive boxed beef report. Now that we have mandatory 

reporting for pork, is the data sufficient to produce something similar for pork?

AMS: We have been working to develop a comprehensive cutout for pork. One of the 

challenges that we have had is the number of product codes to sift through for pork. One 

of the reasons it is easier for beef is that the beef industry uses IMPS codes a lot more in 

their day to day business. When we went through the rule making process for pork, swine 

packers told us that they don’t use IMPS codes but they really do in the background. If 

we had been able to capture that piece of information as a requirement it would at least 

give us the right buckets that those items should be in. On the pork comprehensive, we 

have looked at that with the boxed beef model. We’ve done the background on that. 

Sometime in 2018 we should be able to produce a comprehensive pork report. 

Attendee: Right now about 30% of chickens in the US have never been treated with anti-biotics and 

are marketed as such and the target is around 40% by the end of next year which I think 

would make a larger share than what we have with cage free eggs as far as share of 

production. Yet we have a special report on cage free eggs that gives an estimate on the 

supply of cage free eggs and what the price premiums are. Are you looking to do 

something similar for anti-biotic free chickens in terms of production and price 

premiums? 

AMS: That is something we can consider. We are reporting some antibiotic free chicken but we 

don’t have any survey for production on that. 

ERS: Just to respond to that question, I have seen the same statistics you have and I understand 

that you can get a price for features for poultry that include raised without antibiotics, 

vegetarian only feed and other attributes but not one solely for raised without antibiotics. 

There are also data on price premiums. 

Attendee: We’ve had a couple of new hog slaughter plants come online recently and we’ve got 

more coming down the road. There was a lot of confusion I thought when they came 

online as to whether USDA was including that data or not. What’s the procedure for 

incorporating new capacity?

NASS: For slaughter, NASS picks up the data from FSIS so once FSIS includes it in their counts, 

then NASS in turn picks it up. We don’t do any extra work on the slaughter facilities, it is 

strictly taking FSIS data and packaging it.

Attendee: So we assume it would be there on day one?

Attendee: No, I think you are talking about a couple of different things because you are looking at 

an initial report that’s simply an estimate that’s generated from AMS where they call up 

the plants and talk to their established contacts but then the actual data is based on the 

inspectors is it not? 

NASS: NASS works with AMS to get the weekly data but when the monthly data comes in that’s 

a more comprehensive report. 

Attendee: On the weekly, let’s say the data that is going to be published at the end of this week, that 

is based on an estimate, it’s not based on actual inspector reports?
NASS: NASS is providing data to AMS for those weekly reports, it’s just not complete. 

AMS: I think he is speaking to our daily estimated slaughter. Those are estimates. 

Attendee: Second question has to do with the international situation, particularly how you rely on 

foreign sources such as Stats Canada or anything in China. For a while we were 

following anything from Stats Canada closely but just recently USDA kept its wheat 

estimate below StatsCan by several million tons. Has the way you look at the foreign 

data changed at all?

WAOB: As a general rule, the committee is looking at a variety of sources, they are not 

necessarily wed to a single statistical source anywhere in the world. If we feel like we 

have a better number through other means we will use that number. We will look at 

individual numbers such as Stats Canada and the NSB number from China but at the end 

of the day the committee is evaluating an entire range of data and making adjustments to 

put together the entire report. 

Attendee: You held off and they [StatsCan] came back up.

WAOB: We didn’t move they moved.

Attendee: You usually follow them though.

WAOB: They’ve had this tendency to increase over time in recent years.

Attendee: We’ve got twice as many cattle on feed in Mexico as we have in Canada and a much 

faster growth rate. We very much need Mexican cattle on feed numbers and we need to 

assemble a North American cattle on feed number. Is there any pressure we can put on 

them to persuade them to release that number?

NASS: We try to work with Mexico and Canada and we have a really good working relationship 

internally with both countries. With Canada we are able to put out joint reports for quite a 

few things. But data collection in Mexico is a problem and until they can internally come 

up with numbers it’s going to continue to be a problem. 

Attendee: I’ll give some props to the GATS people and I had a question for them. One thing that is 

somewhat difficult to dig out of the GATS is biofuels imports and exports. It seems like 

the harmonized codes search option to find a biodiesel code is somewhat clunky. It seems 

like we are very limited in broad categories like exports of greater than 30% blend of 

biodiesel or 100%. It just seems like we’re lacking some data, is it because the industry 

doesn’t report well enough or is there another reason? Ethanol has 6 codes and there are 

only 2 codes for biodiesel. It makes it hard to keep track of some of the biodiesel imports 

and exports specifically. 

FAS: We are looking into how we can do a better job with the biodiesel and ethanol so I can 

get back to you on where they are on improving that. 

Attendee: The Chinese government has this policy of holding massive reserves, they report them, 

they are selling their reserves currently, corn something like 225 million metric tons 

where 50 million tons of that is permanent reserves and the rest is temporary reserve but 

if you were to factor that in as carryout or supplies, that greatly exceeds what the 
WASDE reports. It seems like those numbers are ignored as if they are not official data 

even though the Chinese government reports them. 

WAOB: I don’t have any information on that. Again I would have to defer to the members of my 

committee and respond to you at a later time. 

Attendee: 225 million metric tons is the entire production for 1 year for China and if that supply is 

available to the market or even deferring demand in some factor, that would impact the 

entire corn market. 

WAOB: I understand the point, I am not sure how they are accounted for and what they are doing 

with that. 

WAOB: The question always has been how accessible they are to the commercial markets. 

Attendee: So does that mean that the World Outlook Board believes it is there just not accessible?

WAOB: We have made that assumption, the corn stocks are not accessible. 

Attendee: None of the stocks in China are accessible to the market place because China has an 

export TRQ in place, they do not have a free market at all. Even if it’s not accessible 

should it be reported? The market should know that the Outlook Board, if you guys 

believe this, that the stocks are there whether they are government reserve stocks or 

whether they are privately owned stocks. 

Attendee: Especially now when they are becoming a net exporter of ethanol. 

Attendee: The Chinese stocks are there but you cannot get a hard number, you make the best guess 

you can come up with. The key thing is it’s not accessible. The thing with the reserves 

right now is that they are selling some of it out into the world which is fortunate for us 

but the key thing I think is needed is that we should be looking at the 5 major exporters 

and creating a supply and demand for that and that includes Russia. Right now they are in 

the other category. If you look at the WASDE reports for corn, right now we don’t have 

Ukraine in there, we should get rid of South Africa and put Ukraine in there. Let’s create 

information that’s useful. 

WAOB: I appreciate your comment on the updated tables. All I can say is that we definitely need 

to take that into account. There is inertia over time, I admit that and we will address that. 

Attendee: I wanted to talk about the August 10th– September 29th gap this year on the spring wheat 

and durum wheat numbers and the challenge that caused. When we got to the August 

Crop Report, we didn’t change the percent harvested. It would be useful in August or 

September to have some sort of assessment of what producers think in terms of percent 

harvested because I think the 5 year average on percent harvested as of September 1 is 

about 70-75%. So that time in there where we are wondering what yields are, we are 

wondering what percent is going to be abandoned is a big challenge. My question is can 

you devote resources towards that? 

NASS: We actually used to include small grain crops in the September Crop Report as well. We 

stopped forecasting there roughly 15 years ago. The main reason we stopped doing it 

was because we rarely had good information to make much of a change from August 

from the relatively small sample size but we were collecting data from 60,000 – 70,000 
producers at that time gearing up for the September 30th report. The feedback we got was 

that that data wasn’t really providing a whole lot of value because it wasn’t changing 

much from August, it wasn’t signaling what we were going to do at the end of the month 

so we stopped doing it. 

Attendee: You only need it when it’s a bad crop maybe?

NASS: It could be, this year was a bit unusual. Most of the time acreage wouldn’t be an issue, 

you could almost set the harvested to planted ratio without asking on spring wheat but not 

this year. 

Attendee: I’ve got a follow up on that. Every month you ask producers the number of acres they 

intend to harvest. How do you incorporate that into your production estimates at that 

point? If they change the number of acres they are going to harvest, why didn’t we see 

that in August? 

NASS: We don’t actually ask them every month. If they get a paper form in the mail, they have 

the opportunity to report their harvested acres. But if we call them, if they have already 

reported their harvested acres, we don’t ask them again month after month. There is a 

reason for that. If we come back to you every month and ask, “How many acres are you 

going to harvest?” “Well I told you last month.” It becomes a frustration. We are trying to 

reduce the respondent burden to some extent. The second point I would make is the 

greatest value we get out of the reported harvested acres is for weighting purposes. If you 

report a yield and you’ve got 5 acres and your neighbor has 5000 acres, we certainly want 

to put more weight on his yield than yours. We are going to use that harvested acres 

internally for weighting purposes but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have enough 

acreage information to better evaluate state level totals. 

Attendee: I would think on a year like this where you had the issue up in the Dakotas and Montana 

in particular with spring wheat that this was a year that you could really ask those people 

every month what they are doing. Not necessarily ask it every year but when you have a 

year like you did this year. 

NASS: We could, and it’s not just respondent burden but generally speaking, the yield survey we 

do each month is just that a yield survey and it’s designed to measure yield, it’s really not 

designed to measure acreage. We collect the acreage so we can weight those yields. We 

have on occasion gone back and asked harvested acres again because of situations like 

this and typically when we do that, we don’t get enough information to warrant or 

validate a change at that time. So we haven’t deemed it to be the best use of our resources 

based on how it’s performed in the past. 

Attendee: Dan, a couple of questions in regards to the Cattle on Feed report. The enhanced weight 

breakdowns are much appreciated however they would be even more appreciated if we 

could fill a number of those cells in. They’ve been conspicuously blank over the past year 

and as the industry expands, and feed costs stay relatively modest, chances are pretty 

good we are going to place more lighter weight cattle and fewer heavy weight cattle and 

as a result those cells may remain empty for an extended period of time. Is there another 

way that data might be aggregated so that it could be released? 

NASS: Are you referring to the state level data? 
Attendee: There are 4 states that the weight breakdown data is released and a number of those cells 

have not been populated over the course of the past year. Chances are pretty good that 

that may not change going forward under the current industry structure. So I’m 

wondering if maybe Nebraska and Colorado could be aggregated, Kansas and Texas? 

NASS: Yes, let me look into it. We can look at different aggregations of the data but keeping in 

mind that we don’t want the publication to be continuously changing. We should be able 

to look at different combinations of states to publish and discuss at the next Data Users 

Meeting. 

Attendee: Over a period of the last several years we’ve seen the cold storage data on poultry and 

pork expanded rather significantly to include more topic areas. Beef for the most part is 

bone-in and boneless. Is there any possibility that we could get an additional breakdown 

on that data? At least at this point it’s difficult for many of us to know whether they’re 

fifties or nineties when it’s boneless. 

NASS: When you start talking about cold storage we always have to make sure that we don’t 

reveal anything as far as the warehouse facility is concerned. So let me check into that. If 

you have some specifics on what you are looking for, send me an email.

Attendee: I’ve got a question on when we develop these production numbers earlier due to the 

technology that’s coming through on the satellite imagery over the last 2-4 years. Are we 

placing a heavier weighting earlier on some of this data and incorporating that earlier 

from both the U.S. and world perspective?

NASS: We’ve had acreage data for a long period of time, yield data we’ve had about a half a 

dozen years or so. The more history we build the more we are able to rely on it more than 

we have in the past and I think because of technology it has improved as well. That’s 

from the U.S. perspective. 

FAS: I would have to follow up with our production experts on that one. 

WAOB: Case in point for us, our meteorological staff got in front of Russia this year. Certainly 

that was justified. We thought last year was a record crop but certainly what they 

indicated to us early is that it was just going to get larger and it did. The harvest data as 

the crop year progressed indicated that as well. Yes, we did that earlier than we usually 

do. 

Attendee: This is for the Farm Service Agency. Many of the State Directors, at least in Kansas 

there is no State Director. Is there any timetable to get State Directors into state FSA 

offices? 

FSA: There is a timetable, I just don’t know it. I think it is coming soon though. 

Attendee: The Hogs & Pigs report has been much better over the last year. When you start making 

revisions again, you need to think about how you do it but I hope you don’t have to make 

revisions. Second point I want to bring up is on beef. Mike pointed out about fifties and 

nineties, I would add that we need to know about boneless cuts and bone-in cuts too. I 

don’t know how many bone-in cuts are in freezers but most of the stuff goes out in the 

box without the bones in it now so it all gets thrown into boneless I presume. There could 

be a lot of detail added to that beef, you don’t have to get down to ribs and loins and 

rounds or anything like that. You could get that much detail and it would be helpful, not 
just the fifties and nineties out of the boneless but there’s a lot of other boneless cuts in 

there and it runs 90% boneless every month and it just doesn’t provide very much 

information. 

Attendee: For the last 4 or 5 years you have not been reporting prices paid but only an index on 

several things like crop seeds and fertilizers. Why did we quit reporting the price and are 

only reporting the index? 

NASS: I will have to get back with staff to tell you exactly why we don’t report it. But I can tell 

you that the index is part of the parity price process and the sample sizes don’t support 

the publication of the data anymore, they’ve been reduced to only support the indices. 

Attendee: So if the sample size doesn’t support the data, do you actually have a good index?

NASS: It’s enough to support the indices which we only use in combination with other external 

data sources to create the parity price indices.

NASS: C-FARE came in and looked at our price program and we are following what they 

requested and what they stated was the best policy for NASS to follow. So our indices 

are statistically sound. But if there is something in particular that you’re looking for, the 

best thing is to email Jody so his group can respond back to you specifically on that. 

Attendee: I might just mention that RMA is going to start using your indexes more because of 

margin protection plans and farmers sometimes do not like indices that they don’t trust. 

So if you have an index that says here is what the fertilizer was, here is what the seed cost 

was, here is what the fuel price was and yet they don’t see a number, it may impact the 

number of sales they would have for that particular plan because they don’t trust the 

index unless they can see the numbers behind it.

Attendee: I have a question with regards to mandatory pricing rules for boxed beef. So the 22-90 is 

the XB455 report and we know under the regulations for reporting, what we call the 273 

rule, that it will make sure that a packer doesn’t have an undue influence on pricing. So 

on that report, if there are trades let’s say to one packer, it reports on there that there was 

a trade but it doesn’t give us the number of reports, it doesn’t give us the number of 

trades, and it doesn’t give us the price levels. So it doesn’t give us the low, the high, or 

the weighted average. My question for you is, has there been any thought process for that 

report to at least have the number of trades and the weight so we know how much of that 

particular complex was traded that will be sold within 22-90 days of when that was 

reported?

AMS: On the 22-90 day, we are simply showing that the trade occurred, it is not passing 

through 3,70,20 confidentiality, the guidelines. I didn’t fully hear the rest of your 

question.

Attendee: Is there a way that we can at least see the number of trades at the weight that was traded? 

The number of trades are going to be a very good indication, whether this was a single 

source or multiple sources. Is it going to move the market? Is this just a one-off? And the 

weight helps to tell us where those complexes are going. So I am going to give an 

example, we know the consumers suffered a 155% increase on a shoulder tender this 

year. Well those shoulder tenders were sold by a packer but it was not reported on the 22-

90. Also, intercompany and intracompany sales between packers, have you put any 

thoughts into more regulation and/or more reporting as far as those sales are concerned?
We know that there is a very large packer who is actually one of the largest consumers to 

other packers in the industry but we don’t see those sales. 

AMS: Your first question, the 22-90’s, we can look at providing more data just off the price 

series itself for confidentiality purposes. Your second question, at this time the statute 

and regulation doesn’t speak to intercompany transfers. We did have beef and cattle 

stakeholder meetings where some of those items were brought up, intercompany sales, 

further processing type reporting of product, etc. No conversation really came of it so at 

this time we are not looking at reporting intercompany sales because it’s not covered in 

the Act. 

Attendee: My question is will case rated sales ever be reported at any time because packers are 

putting more and more of the knife to their products because it is what the consumer is 

demanding. However, if they put the knife to that product, it’s not reported. In a lot of 

respects we have lost a lot of transparency with regards to where that meat is going and 

we call it hiding meat and we face that every single day. It does affect us as the 

consumer and I have to speak to my customers and my constituents and my executive 

leadership team why can we not see this and why can we not control some of the 

volatility in the box market. 

AMS: It’s some good comments, they’re received, I don’t have a fixed answer for you at this 

time we’ll take your questions and get back to you. 

Attendee: Dan, you mentioned you had some changes and ideas about things you are going to redo 

on your various reports. Is there going to be someplace where we are going to be able to 

see those things before next April?

NASS: Like an example report of how it might look?

Attendee: Yes something like that. 

NASS: On this topic too, I posed a little bit earlier, I know a number of folks on this panel and 

across government are really investing in visualization and you can create some great 

stuff but at the same time, it is an investment. And that’s something we have talked about 

too, about going deeper, more investment in that area and just any thoughts about how 

much you use Tableau and some of the other visualizations you see on our websites and 

where we might be able to add value. 

Attendee: I do have a comment on Tableau. We have been, at Farm Bureau, taking a lot of the data 

and analysts have been putting it into Tableau and posting it on websites. We found very 

good response to that so we are very supportive of that type of presentation. It makes the 

data much more useable from a visual standpoint. 

NASS: And I am sure whatever we would do we would make sure that it is something that others 

could harvest and lift and expose on their own sites. 

Attendee: With Tableau, it’s often difficult to load it on a mobile device and fully utilize it. We 

experienced that at Farm Bureau trying to use Tableau because a lot of our content is read 

on a mobile device. This is just a comment it’s not a question. In the HTML code you 

can have it detect the type of browser the user is on and you can have two different 

Tableau dashboards and it will load based on whatever type of device the user is 
accessing the page on. It’s a lot more legwork to do so but that would make it work better 

for users depending on the device. 

NASS: Good comment, thank you. That’s certainly true in any web forms that we produce too in 

terms of survey forms. They need to be able to recognize what you device is and also 

what your browser is and renders is a way that makes sense given your conditions. 

Attendee: On another topic this afternoon, advanced technologies has been mentioned a couple of 

times and even drones. Can someone respond as far as what NASS has been using as far 

as drone technology or any talks about that for the future?

NASS: The answer is we are not using drones. We don’t use drones and we aren’t using that 

technology. We will use remotely sensed data if it’s available to us, there is more and 

more satellite imagery becoming available. Obviously FAS is a big consumer of 

commercial satellite imagery as well. We are interested in what’s out there but we are 

not doing it.