A report, released last month by the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), lays out several recommendations to improve the way the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) collects surveys and reports data. It also gives recommendations to improve accuracy and farmer confidence in the survey results.
After that report was released, Lance Honig, Chief of the Crops Branch of USDA NASS, says he sees the AFBF recommendations as an opportunity to cooperate and improve USDA reports.
The AFBF recommendations include increasing transparency on how NASS arrives at the numbers reported and providing clarity on the relationship between aggregate, state, and field-level reported numbers. They would also like to see the agency accelerate its adoption of new and innovative technologies.