WASHINGTON (DTN) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday revised September corn estimates published in its Crop Production and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) reports after questions were raised about unusually high corn production estimates in Kansas and Nebraska.
The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) said the problem with the crop report cost farmers billions of dollars in market value.
USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) said a processing error involving acreage weights affected September corn plant populations and ear counts in Kansas and Nebraska and the 10-state averages, as well as yield forecasts for the same states.
"The review identified a September processing error involving incorrect acreage weights used to combine irrigated and non-irrigated objective yield observations for Kansas and Nebraska," NASS said in a news release.
The corrected September yield forecasts are:
-- Kansas: 119 bushels per acre (bpa), down 3 bushels
-- Nebraska: 182 bpa, up 5 bushels
-- United States: 178.8 bpa, up 0.3 bushels
The affected September data and forecasts have been corrected in the Crop Production reports and Quick Stats. Despite the revisions, USDA did not change its October yield projection of 181.2 bpa or its production projection of 16.034 billion bushels (bb).
The corrected September national corn figures were 178.5 bpa to 178.8 bpa for yield and 15.800 bb to 15.828 bb for production.
"Moving forward, we will implement additional pre-publication checks to verify acreage weights and validate objective yield calculations," USDA said. "We are evaluating further improvements to strengthen our quality-control procedures."
MARKET AND FARMERS REACTION
The correction comes after the Oct. 9 WASDE report triggered frustration among traders and producers. December corn futures dropped over 20 cents per bushel following the report's release.
"Recent reports by NASS have cost corn growers BILLIONS of dollars in market value, at a time when profit margins were already marginal, at best, and the cost for fuel and other inputs are at all-time highs," said Matt Frostic, a Michigan farmer and president of the National Corn Growers Association. "An error of this magnitude is unacceptable, and only further erodes farmer confidence in the agency's ability to produce statistically sound and accurate reports."
One day after the correction was announced, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins flew in F-5 fighter jets in Alabama on Saturday to promote a data collection partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that will "strengthen USDA data quality." USDA touted its data modernization plans to "reduce unnecessary burdens on producers, and improve the timeliness, accuracy, and usefulness of the agricultural data that inform decisions across American agriculture."
WHAT USDA THOUGHT
Questions about USDA's September corn estimates surfaced during an Oct. 14 USDA Data Users Meeting, where agency officials attempted to explain unusual survey results in Nebraska.
Officials acknowledged that both irrigated and non-irrigated ear counts declined, yet the combined statewide estimate increased because of shifts in weighting between the two categories.
At the meeting, an official said more objective-yield samples had been completed in October than in September, changing the relative proportions of irrigated and non-irrigated observations. That shift could cause the combined figure to increase even when both individual counts declined.
"As far as the math goes, if you have, even if both categories go down, if the one that has higher totals goes up in proportion, that means the total can still go up even though the parts went down. So that was the short version of the story around the Nebraska corn test plots this year," said Lance Honig, chair of the Agricultural Statistics Board.
Delayed harvest, officials said, could affect how much data farmers had available to report in their questionnaires.
"If harvest is behind, then we would expect that farmers would not have as much harvested data to report to us when they're filling out their questionnaire, but we take that into account," said Anthony Prillaman, associate deputy administrator of the Estimation Branch of NASS. "That's just one piece of the information that we're using." Satellite and objective yield data are also considered.
But the officials early reasoning turned to error over incorrect acreage weights almost 10 days later.
Objective-yield data are gathered by enumerators working through the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA), who collect samples from selected fields. Once the crop reaches a certain stage of maturity, those samples are harvested and sent to USDA's laboratory in St. Louis for measurement and analysis. The number of samples was not disclosed during the meeting.
Patrick Boyle, an acting deputy administrator for NASS, said the agency "have enough manpower on the ground" and that procedures and training for enumerators conducting field measurements are consistent from year to year.
Friday's correction points to a data-processing issue rather than a field-collection problem.
FIRST TIME IN A WHILE
USDA officials have traditionally avoided revising published estimates unless new data become available. "We usually don't make a change unless we have new data, new fresh data to base that on," Boyle said. That was not the case with Friday's correction.
While USDA has corrected major agricultural reports before, revisions to underlying crop-report data after publication appear relatively rare.
One of the clearest precedents occurred in October 2008, when USDA reduced planted corn acreage by roughly 1 million acres and soybean acreage by approximately 1.1 million acres after discovering discrepancies in Farm Service Agency acreage data. The department also issued an abbreviated WASDE report incorporating those adjustments.
The latest revision may never have occurred without concerns raised by producers and market analysts. "We thank the farmers and data users who brought the concerns to our attention," NASS said in the statement.
DTN Farm Business Editor Chris Clayton contributed to this report.
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