CHICAGO, Ill. (Reuters) — Record-low responses from farmers to surveys threaten the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s status as the gold standard in crop data collection and potentially open up trading advantages to big firms, the agency’s chief economist said.
Response rates have been on a precipitous decline in recent years, falling below 60 percent in some cases from rates of 80 to 85 percent in the early 1990s, chief economist Robert Johansson said in a study published by the University of Illinois.
The study said reduced response rates could introduce bias or error to the USDA’s estimates — for example, if farms producing higher yields dropped out.
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Encouraging more farmers to respond would ensure the USDA continued to provide objective information to all participants in agriculture markets, the study said.
“In a market without this free information, large firms might well be able to invest in market intelligence that small firms and farms would not have available,” it added.
The USDA surveys tens of thousands of farmers for detailed planting and harvesting data for dozens of crops. The data is viewed as the “gold standard” by the agency because of its scope and methodology, the study said.
Data at the county level is used to help calculate compensation payments to farmers under the 2014 farm bill.
Survey response rates have fallen in part because of the use of caller identification and replacement of land lines with cellphones.
Ways to combat loss of farmer data could include using information from the USDA’s Risk Management Agency, which manages federal crop insurance policies, as well as remote sensing and weather data.
The USDA is one of the top 10 spenders of federal funds with a budget of US$156 billion in 2016.
Johansson, nominated as chief economist in 2015 by then-USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, plans to remain in his post, a spokesperson said Jan. 19. President Donald Trump has chosen Sonny Perdue, a former governor of Georgia, to lead the USDA.
