{"id":1657,"date":"2026-05-07T15:16:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=1657"},"modified":"2026-05-07T15:16:55","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:16:55","slug":"american-farmers-shun-usda-surveys-as-trust-in-data-erodes-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=1657","title":{"rendered":"American farmers shun USDA surveys as trust in data erodes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Erin Ailworth, Michael Hirtzer, Bloomberg News<\/strong><\/p>\n

American farmers are ignoring U.S. Department of Agriculture surveys in the latest sign of distrust in government data.<\/p>\n

Read more Tornadoes cut across Mississippi as severe storms damage 500 homes<\/a><\/p>\n

Reply rates for the USDA\u2019s annual prospective planting report sank in March to a record low, with just over a third of 73,800 farm operations surveyed answering questions on the acres they will plant this spring of everything from corn and soybeans to tobacco and chickpeas. That compares with about 60% of farmers responding in 2018, with replies declining in each year since, according to government records.<\/p>\n

Farmers say they are wary of sharing data to inform reports they feel often work against them, especially with abundant harvests in recent years keeping crop prices under pressure.<\/p>\n

The mounting skepticism comes as the USDA is looking to become more responsive to farmers through a transformation that relies heavily on shared data. It also echoes a broader loss of trust in government data, particularly as President Donald Trump has called into question federal statistics and information \u2014 from jobs reports to voter tallies and even weather maps.<\/p>\n

Iowa farmer Ben Riensche says the agency\u2019s various surveys are too arduous and the markets often slump after the corresponding reports are released, affecting what they get paid for their crops.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t trust the data, I don\u2019t trust the process, I don\u2019t trust their people,\u201d Riensche said. \u201cAnd they monkey with my business.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trend may present complications for Trump\u2019s efforts to court farmers, a key voting bloc for him and the Republican Party. He has repeatedly hosted farmers at the White House, unveiling a $12 billion aid package for them in December, then holding a \u201ccelebration of agriculture\u201d\u2014 complete with a gold-colored tractor on the White House lawn \u2014 in March.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Intelligence from the farm is the lifeblood of the USDA\u2019s reports, resulting in findings and forecasts that influence the direction of global crop prices and, ultimately, helps determine how much consumers pay for food.<\/p>\n

But distrust of the USDA\u2019s conclusions is creating a vicious circle, with the lack of contributions making the agency\u2019s reports less accurate and in turn generating more farmer skepticism. That lack of accuracy also is resulting in more volatility in futures markets.<\/p>\n

A case in point is the January crops report from the USDA, which surprised the market when the agency unexpectedly boosted its estimate for the U.S. corn crop by 1.6% to a record 17.021 billion bushels. Most had been anticipating a slight downward revision from the USDA\u2019s previous forecast, and futures in Chicago subsequently posted their biggest daily decline in years.<\/p>\n

While it was known that farmers shifted heavily toward corn during the growing season \u2014 particularly after China halted its purchases of American soybeans \u2014 the unexpected increase in supply blindsided many.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWhen the USDA is that far off without much explanation, it creates distrust in future reports,\u201d Darin LaBar, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat in Michigan, wrote to the USDA. He was one of 240 people who answered a request by the agency seeding feedback on ways to improve its data collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be able to trust the information that you\u2019re given, and if you can\u2019t even trust that, then why even do the report?\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said after the January report that the agency wanted to ensure it wasn\u2019t \u201cdriving price outcomes.\u201d Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden also addressed the issue at the agency\u2019s annual spring meeting with its data users.<\/p>\n

Read more US jobless claim applications rise to 200,000 but remain historically low despite economic headwinds<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that the data that we provide moves markets; we understand that it affects individual planning decisions by farmers and, therefore, we know that the data we provide needs to be correct,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The National Agricultural Statistics Service in an emailed statement said it is working to address declining response rates, and \u201cremains committed to providing timely, accurate, and useful statistics in service to American agriculture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montana farmer Sarah Degn said she has little faith in the reports because she knows producers \u2014 herself included \u2014 often fill them out while pressed for time and distracted by all their responsibilities on the farm. Few have time to sit down and pull out the spreadsheets and other records they need to give accurate answers, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re in a hurry, you\u2019re just trying to remember the numbers off the top of your head,\u201d said Degn. \u201cSo I\u2019ve always questioned the accuracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former USDA chief economist Seth Meyer is intimately familiar with the issues. He views the data the agency collects from farmers as the backbone of all the analysis and aid it provides for the agriculture sector. So when farmers don\u2019t participate, he said, the data suffers and then farmers lose even more faith in the USDA\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t the farmers\u2019 fault, per se, but it also can\u2019t be solved without them,\u201d said Meyer, now director of the University of Missouri\u2019s Food & Agricultural Policy Research Institute. \u201cThe USDA has to go out and say, \u2018Hey, there\u2019s good reasons that you want to do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The information the agency solicits is used to, among other things, track crop plantings and harvests, and estimate domestic and global inventories and demand.<\/p>\n

USDA Undersecretary Richard Fordyce sees a potential solution in the agency\u2019s new \u201cOne Farmer, One File\u201d initiative. The program is meant to streamline the way the USDA gets and internally shares the information on crops and farms it requires from growers looking to qualify for federal loans. Fordyce has been talking with colleagues about whether that information could be shared for survey purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe probably have some of that data,\u201d Fordyce said. \u201cWe could probably help pre-populate survey responses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephen Nicholson, head of crops at agriculture lender Rabobank, worries that low participation is eroding the agency\u2019s reputation as a gold standard of agricultural information.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to lose that standard,\u201d Nicholson said, adding that he encourages farmers to fill out the surveys. \u201cThat gives the market better data, better information.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a92026 Bloomberg News. Visit at bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/p>\n

Read more Nearly 2 million ballots are on their way to Orange County voters<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reply rates for the USDA\u2019s annual prospective planting report sank to a record low.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nAmerican farmers shun USDA surveys as trust in data erodes - Silicon Valley Moving Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=1657\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"American farmers shun USDA surveys as trust in data erodes - Silicon Valley Moving Post\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Reply rates for the USDA\u2019s annual prospective planting report sank to a record low.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=1657\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Silicon Valley Moving Post\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-07T15:16:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ba5fc75879d709188f72c6c664269138.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"682\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=1657#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=1657\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/636e2e5a10a21cf87fe6eb5951e8a6b7\"},\"headline\":\"American farmers shun USDA surveys as trust in data erodes\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-07T15:16:55+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=1657\"},\"wordCount\":1071,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=1657#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/ba5fc75879d709188f72c6c664269138.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"National News\",\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=1657#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=1657\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=1657\",\"name\":\"American farmers shun USDA surveys as trust in data erodes - 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