01/17/06 Accurate data from producers?

Much of production agriculture, from a Northwest standpoint the wheat industry, reviewed the numbers recently issued by U.S.D.A. and its data branch, the National Agricultural Statistics Service. It was the regular crop reports, and for our region, specific data on crop production, winter wheat seedings, and grain stocks. And while the story covered in the news may have been a slight decline in Northwest white winter wheat seedings and acres over last year, what may be the bigger news is what it takes to collect all of this data that producers and marketers rely on so heavily. N.A.S.S. is responsible for collecting and assimilating this data into its various forms. Joe Prusacki is the Chief of N.A.S.S.'s crops branch. And he says the crop reports start with representatives from N.A.S.S. offices in all fifty states conducting surveys with ag producers. And as Prusacki emphasizes, that doesn't just mean a small sample either. PRUSACKI: We had sample sizes of about 77,000 farm operators across the United States that we contacted. And we acted the producers basically how many acres did you plant, how much did you harvested, what was your yield. And then we asked them to give us their final yield of production because most of the crops are already out of the field. And the same thing with the stocks. We ask the producers to report basically all the crops that they have in storage on their farm. And then in a separate survey, we contact mills, operators, people who have normally have off-farm storage, and we collect stock as of December One from them. N.A.S.S. then uses the data collected from the surveys to compare with other sources, such as Farm Service Agency information, the Census of Agriculture, and in some cases, double checked information with other ag producers. But even with this attention to detail, Prusacki says the main reason the crop reports from N.A.S.S. are as important and accurate as they are is the involvement of producers. PRUSACKI: It is vitally important for operators to participate, because the higher the participation rate the more accurate the results of the survey. One of the things that N.A.S.S. prides itself upon is that our surveys are not mandatory. It is basically the good will between the producers and the United States and U.S.D.A.  N.A.S.S. working together to come up with the data for these processes. Information such as crop reports can be found at N.A.S.S.'s website, www.nass.usda.gov. And producers and others interested can sign up for future reports via e-mail at the website as well.