United States 

 Department of 

 Agriculture

 

 National 

 Agricultural 

 Statistics 

 Service

 Research and 

 Development Division 

 Washington DC 20250 

 RDD Research Report 

 Number RDD-08-02 

January 2008 

Price Reactions After the 

Official Release of the 

NASS Honey Publication 

Christopher W. Taylor 

This report was prepared for limited distribution to the research community outside the United 

States Department of Agriculture. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the 

National Agricultural Statistics Service or of the United States Department of Agriculture. 

i 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

The agricultural industry often asks, “What effects will the publishing of agricultural statistics 

have on the market of our product?” Markets of agricultural commodities that involve a great 

deal of speculation have especially wondered about this. In response, the National Agricultural 

Statistics Service (NASS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) publishes two 

reports (Price Reactions After USDA Crop Reports and Price Reactions After USDA Livestock 

Reports) showing that the price reactions to the official release of certain NASS publications 

tend to even out over time. 

This report focuses on the honey industry and supports NASS’s findings that the price reactions 

to the official release of certain reports tend to even out over time. It also concludes that the 

official release of the NASS Honey publication has no systematic effect on the honey market. 

The independent price data used in assessing the impact of the NASS publication release were 

obtained from the National Honey Report published by the Agricultural Marketing Service 

(AMS) of the USDA. 

1 

Price Reactions After the Official Release of the NASS Honey Publication 

Christopher W. Taylor1

Abstract 

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) of the United States Department of 

Agriculture (USDA) conducts hundreds of surveys to make estimates on crops, livestock, 

production practices, farm economics, etc. Some elements of the agricultural industry ask, “What 

effects will the publishing of agricultural statistics have on the market of our product?” Markets 

of agricultural commodities that involve a great deal of speculation have especially wondered 

about this. In response, NASS publishes two reports (Price Reactions After USDA Crop Reports

and Price Reactions After USDA Livestock Reports) showing that the price reactions to the 

official release of certain NASS publications tend to even out over time. 

This report examines the honey market which was not covered in NASS’s earlier price reactions 

studies. The independent price data used in assessing the impact of the NASS publication release 

were obtained from the National Honey Report published by the Agricultural Marketing Service 

(AMS) of the USDA. The mean interval estimate determined from the sample of 65 measured 

price reactions with a confidence level of 95 percent is between -$0.03 and $0.01. The interval is 

short, includes zero, and is roughly symmetric about zero. A frequency distribution comparison 

(including a sample mean t-test) also supports this conclusion and suggests that the official 

release of the NASS Honey publication has no systematic effect on the honey market. 

KEY WORDS: NASS Honey Publication, price reaction, chi-square distribution goodness-of-fit 

 test.

 

1

 Christopher W. Taylor is a student in the Department of Agricultural Sciences and the Department of Mathematics 

and Physics at Tennessee State University (3500 John A. Merritt Blvd., Nashville, TN 37209) and an intern at the 

National Agricultural Statistics Service – Research and Development Division (Suite 305, 3251 Old Lee Hwy., 

Fairfax, VA 22030). An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the National Society for Minorities in 

Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences (MANRRS) 22nd Annual Career Fair and Training 

Conference, March 2007. The author wishes to acknowledge Terry O’Connor, Michael Gerling, Tim Keller and 

Sharyn Lavender for their comments on the updated manuscript and Surrendra P. Singh for his comments on the 

early draft of it. 
2 

1) INTRODUCTION 

The purpose of the National 

Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) of 

the United States Department of Agriculture 

(USDA) is to provide timely, accurate, and 

useful statistics on United States and Puerto 

Rico agriculture. To accomplish this, NASS 

conducts hundreds of surveys to make 

estimates on crops, livestock, production 

practices, farm economics, etc. 

NASS publishes its honey statistics 

in an annual report entitled Honey (see 

Appendix A for the February 2007 NASS 

Honey publication). The honey statistics are 

obtained by sending out the NASS Bee and 

Honey Inquiry questionnaire every year to 

beekeepers (see Appendix B for this 

questionnaire). 

Since 1986 NASS has published 

honey statistics on honey-producing 

beekeepers with five or more colonies. 

These statistics consist of the number of 

honey-producing colonies, yield per colony, 

production, stocks held by producers on 

December 15, average price per pound and 

value of production. The average price of 

honey, on the national level, is broken down 

into individual prices based on its color class 

and marketing channel used. Most states are 

included in the annual release of these 

statistics produced by NASS. Some states, 

however, such as Connecticut, Delaware, 

Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, 

Oklahoma, Rhode Island and South 

Carolina, are grouped in a category called 

“Other States.” 

Over time, some individuals have 

implied that the release of publications from 

NASS, such as the NASS Honey 

Publication, cause prices to fall. Using 

market prices determined by the National 

Honey Report of the Agricultural Marketing 

Service (AMS) of the USDA, this research 

report examines the impact of the official 

release of the NASS Honey publication on 

the market price of honey using three 

statistical methods: 

1) An interval estimation of the price 

reaction. 

2) A chi-square distribution goodnessof-fit test using price reaction data. 

3) A comparison of the “true” price 

reaction frequency distribution to a 

related, “controlled” price reaction 

frequency distribution. A t-test for 

determining if there is a difference 

between the mean of the “true” price 

reaction frequency distribution and 

the mean of the “controlled” price 

reaction frequency distribution was 

also included in this step. 

See Appendices C and D for copies of the 

February and March 2007 AMS National 

Honey Report publications. This report will 

use statistical definitions and tests shown by 

Bluman (2007). 

 AMS is an agency in the USDA that 

focuses on assisting producers in various 

stages of the marketing of agricultural 

products. Some of these include 

standardization, overseeing marketing orders 

and agreements, administering research and 

promotion programs, purchasing 

commodities for Federal food programs, and 

supporting scientific research related to the 

marketing of agricultural products. 

NASS examines on an on-going, yearly 

basis whether NASS reports have influenced 

the prices of agricultural crops (such as corn, 

soybean, wheat and cotton) and livestock 

(such as cattle and pigs). This examination 

culminates in two annual NASS reports 

titled Price Reactions After USDA Crop 

Reports and Price Reactions After USDA 

Livestock Reports. These reports indicate 

that price reactions after the official release 

of NASS reports on specific agricultural 

commodity markets tend to even out over 

time (see Appendix E for the first page of 
3 

the 2007 Price Reactions After USDA 

Livestock Reports). That is, the prices of 

specific commodities increase about as 

much as they decrease and remain the same 

after the official release of NASS reports 

(NASS, 2007). Examples of NASS reports 

that are used for measuring price reactions 

are Cattle on Feed, Crop Production, Grain 

Stocks, Hogs and Pigs, and Milk Production. 

2) METHODOLOGY 

 AMS publishes several market news 

reports for agricultural commodities. The 

market news report for honey, entitled the 

National Honey Report, is the source of data 

for this report. This report has been 

published monthly since July 2000. Hence, 

seven years of data were available. 

 AMS conducts a survey to obtain its 

honey price data. They contact honey 

distributors (wholesalers, packers/shippers, 

and brokers) that sell honey in different 

states from different floral sources and with 

different colors. Because of this product 

variation, only prices from honey with the 

same floral source, color and state origin 

from February to March for each year were 

used in the price reaction data analysis. 

For example, white clover honey 

from South Dakota was one of the data 

items used in the 2007 price reaction 

because it was available in both February 

and March (see Appendices C and D for the 

February and March 2007 reports). The 

other two data items used for the 2007 price 

reactions were white clover honey from 

Montana and extra light amber clover honey 

from South Dakota. 

February and March were chosen 

because the February publication is always 

released just before the NASS Honey 

publication is released, and the March 

publication is always released just after the 

NASS Honey publication is released. (The 

NASS Honey publication is released 

towards the end of February.) A total of 65 

price reactions of the price of a particular 

type of honey (based on the aforementioned 

criteria) were used to measure the impact of 

the official release of the NASS Honey 

publication. Every price change was 

obtained from honey sold in volumes of 

10,000 pounds or greater. Therefore, each 

price reaction can be given an equal weight. 

For the comparison of the price 

reaction data to the related “controlled” 

price reaction data, only prices from honey 

with the same floral source, color and state 

origin from March to April in a particular 

year were used in the price reaction data 

analysis. March and April were chosen 

because these months are most similar to 

February and March in terms of the general 

trend in the honey market, except, of course, 

that the NASS Honey publication is not 

released in March or April. Hence, this 

measured price reaction will serve as a 

“control” to measure if the official release of 

the NASS Honey publication has an effect 

on the price of honey. To do this, frequency 

distributions were compared for the “true” 

price reaction data (from February to March) 

and the “controlled” price reaction data 

(from March to April). 

AMS honey price data differ from 

NASS honey price data in that it measures 

the price that buyers are paying honey 

producers for their honey. (NASS asks the 

producers what they are receiving for their 

first sale.) 

AMS produces its National Honey 

Report independently from NASS. AMS 

“does not collaborate with NASS” to 

produce the National Honey Report. “The 

[honey] market as reported by Market News 

is based upon sales as reported by honey 

packers, cross-checked with sellers to the 

extent possible” (Long, 2006). 
4 

A frequency distribution was 

prepared using the “true” price reactions 

measured in the month after the release of 

the NASS Honey report. In this case, the 

data points, as stated earlier, represent the 

price reaction of particular type of honey 

from February to March. It is important to 

note that a honey could only be of a 

particular type if it was from the same state 

and had the same floral source and color. 

From the frequency distribution of these 

data points, a mean of the data was 

calculated. The confidence level for the 

confidence interval was set at 95 percent. 

Although the standard deviation of the 

population is unknown, the sample size is 

greater than 30 (and the standard deviation 

of the sample used in forming the 

confidence interval can be used). Therefore, 

the standard normal distribution (using the 

z-test) was used to find the mean confidence 

interval. 

A chi-square distribution goodnessof-fit test was also performed on the data to 

determine if the null hypothesis for the 

goodness-of-fit test was supported or 

rejected. The null hypothesis conjectured for 

the test was that the price reactions were 

negative, zero, and positive an equal number 

of times. The alternative hypothesis, then, 

was that the distribution was not the same as 

stated in the null hypothesis. Stated 

statistically, the null and alternative 

hypotheses were as follows: 

H0: The price reactions are negative, 

zero, and positive an equal 

number of times. 

H1: The distribution is not the same 

as stated in the null hypothesis. 

Similarly, the null and alternative 

hypotheses for the frequency distribution 

comparison were as follows: 

H0: The “true” price reactions are the 

same as the “controlled” price 

reactions. 

H1: The “true” price reactions are not

the same as the “controlled” 

price reactions. 

3) ANALYSIS OF THE DATA 

Table 1 shows the frequency 

distribution of the price reaction data for all 

seven years. The mean point estimate price 

reaction of honey after the official release of 

the NASS Honey publication calculated 

from the 65 measured price reactions was -

$0.01. Mean point estimates for each year’s 

three categories of price reactions are 

included in Table 2 for reference. The 

numbers of observations for each year are 

not equal because the honey had to be of a 

particular type to qualify for the price 

reactions, and every particular type was not 

available from month to month and year to 

year. 

Furthermore, the standard deviation 

for the sample data is $0.10. Using these 

statistics and a z-test value of 1.96 (derived 

from the chosen 95 percent confidence 

rating), the interval estimate for the 

population mean of the price reaction of 

honey to the release of the NASS Honey

publication is somewhere between -$0.03 

and $0.01, with 95 percent confidence. 
5 

Table 1: Frequency Distribution of “True” Price Reaction Data 

Class limits Class boundaries Frequency (f ) Midpoint (Xm) 

Dollars Dollars 

less than -0.305 --- 1 -0.315 

-0.30 to -0.20 -0.305 to -0.195 1 -0.250 

-0.19 to -0.10 -0.195 to -0.095 4 -0.145 

-0.09 to 0.00 -0.095 to 0.005 35 -0.045 

 0.01 to 0.10 0.005 to 0.105 21 0.055 

 0.11 to 0.20 0.105 to 0.205 2 0.155 

 0.205 or more --- 1 0.500 

 65 -0.010*

 * Mean point estimate for “true” price reactions

Table 2: Annual Honey “True” Price Reactions to Official Release of Honey Based on 

Prices from AMS 

After Release of Honey

Year Increase Same Decrease 

Number Average Number Average Number Average 

 Dollars Dollars Dollars

2001 4 0.0075 4 --- 2 -0.0200

2002 6 0.0200 3 --- 1 -0.0100

2003 1 0.5000 1 --- 1 -0.0250

2004 3 0.0550 2 --- 7 -0.0743

2005 5 0.0865 2 --- 9 -0.1022

2006 5 0.0480 4 --- 2 -0.0125

2007 0 --- 0 --- 3 -0.0500

All Years 24 0.0620 16 --- 25 -0.0676
6 

Table 3 shows the observed and 

expected frequencies to be used in the chisquare distribution goodness-of-fit test. 

Observed frequencies (O) refer to the 

categories that the “true” price reactions fit 

into. Expected frequencies (E) refer to the 

expected value for the case that the negative, 

zero and positive price reactions are equal. 

Given that there are three different 

categories available for the distribution of 

the price reactions (negative, zero, and 

positive), there are two degrees of freedom. 

Hence, with a confidence rating of 95 

percent, the critical value is 5.99. The chisquare value calculated from the actual and 

expected frequencies is, on the other hand, 

2.25. Since the chi-square value is lower 

than the critical value, there is not enough 

evidence to reject the claim that the price 

reactions to the official release of the NASS 

Honey Publication tend to even out over 

time. The expected frequencies are not 

significantly different from those given in 

the null hypothesis. Another observation that 

supports this claim is that the number of 

negative price reactions (25) is 

approximately equal to the number of 

positive price reactions (24). 

 Table 4 shows the frequency 

distribution of the “controlled” price 

reaction data (see Table 5 for mean point 

estimates for each year’s three types of price 

reactions). Again, the numbers of 

observations for each year are not equal 

because the honey had to be of a particular 

type to qualify for the price reactions, and 

every particular type was not available from 

month to month and year to year. The mean 

point estimate of the “controlled” price 

reaction data is -$0.03 and the standard 

deviation is $0.08, while the mean of the 

“true” price reaction data, as stated earlier, 

was -$0.01 and the standard deviation was 

$0.10. 

Figure 1 shows that both price 

reactions have similar shaped distributions. 

It is important to note that (using a t-test) the 

two means are not significantly different at 

the 0.05 alpha level. (In this case, the 

calculated t-value, -1.19 is greater than the 

calculated critical value, -1.98.) Hence, it 

can be concluded that the two distributions 

are approximately the same. 

Table 3: Observed Frequencies (O) and Expected Frequencies (E) 

Negative Zero Positive 

Number of Price Reactions 

O 25 16 24 

E 21.67 21.67 21.67
7 

Table 4: Frequency Distribution of “Controlled” Price Reaction Data 

Class limits Class boundaries Frequency (f ) Midpoint (Xm) 

Dollars Dollars 

less than -0.305 --- 1 -0.405 

-0.30 to -0.20 -0.305 to -0.195 1 -0.250 

-0.19 to -0.10 -0.195 to -0.095 1 -0.145 

-0.09 to 0.00 -0.095 to 0.005 32 -0.045 

 0.01 to 0.10 0.005 to 0.105 12 0.055 

 0.11 to 0.20 0.105 to 0.205 1 0.155 

 0.205 or more --- 0 --- 

 48 -0.030* 

* Mean point estimate for “controlled” price reactions 

Table 5: Annual Honey Price Reactions to Official Release of Honey Based on Prices from 

AMS, Number of and Mean Point Estimates for “Controlled” Price Changes 

Controlled Price Reaction 

Year Increase Same Decrease 

Number Average Number Average Number Average 

 Dollars Dollars Dollars

2001 1 0.0150 3 --- 4 -0.0125

2002 2 0.0125 0 --- 2 -0.0225

2003 1 0.0500 1 --- 1 -0.0500

2004 3 0.0200 1 --- 8 -0.0863

2005 2 0.0450 1 --- 5 -0.0880

2006 4 0.0550 2 --- 2 -0.0450

2007 0 --- 1 --- 4 -0.0238

All Years 13 0.0354 9 --- 26 -0.0562
8 

Figure 1: Comparison of the Frequency Distributions of the “True” and “Controlled” Price 

Reactions (Excluding Classes with Open-ended Limits) 

4) SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

The interval estimate determined 

from the sample of 65 measured price 

reactions with a confidence level of 95 

percent falls between -$0.03 and $0.01. This 

means that this interval is short, includes 

zero, and is roughly symmetric about zero. 

A chi-square distribution goodness-of-fit test 

(with a confidence level of 95 percent again) 

showed that the null hypothesis, which 

stated that the price reactions are negative, 

zero and positive an equal number of times, 

could not be rejected. Both of these findings 

support the claim that the price reactions to 

the official release of the NASS Honey 

Publication tend to even out over time. 

The comparison of the frequency 

distribution and means of the “true” and 

“controlled” price reactions showed that the 

distributions of the price reactions are 

approximately the same. The overall 

conclusion of the report is therefore that the 

official release of the NASS Honey 

publication has no systematic effect on the 

honey market. 

5) REFERENCES 

Bluman, Allan G. 2007. Elementary 

Statistics: A Step by Step Approach 

(Sixth Edition). Boston, MA: 

McGraw-Hill. 

Long, Terry. 2006. Branch Chief for Fruit 

and Vegetable Market News, 

Agricultural Marketing Service, 

United States Department of 

Agriculture, personal 

communication. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, National 

Agricultural Statistics Service. 2007. 

Price Reactions After USDA 

Livestock Report and Price 

Reactions After USDA Crop Report. 

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

F

r

e

q

u

e

n

c

y

"True" Price Reactions

"Controlled" Price

Reactions

0.01 to 

0.10 

0.11 to 

0.20 

-0.30 to 

-0.20 

-0.09 to 

 0.00 

-0.19 to 

-0.10 

Class Limits
9 

Appendix A: February 2007 NASS Honey Publication 
10 
11 
12 
13 

Appendix B: 2006 Bee and Honey Inquiry Questionnaire 
14 
15 

Appendix C: Page One of February 2007 AMS National Honey Report Publication 
16 

Appendix D: Page One of March 2007 AMS National Honey Report Publication 
17 

Appendix E: Page One of 2007 NASS Price Reactions After USDA Livestock Reports Publication