Market News & Headlines >> USDA Details Plans for Industry Reports

USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) on Monday laid out a timetable for its plans to restart several industry reports discontinued by the Census Bureau in 2011 due to budget cuts.

The first re-launch, a monthly U.S. ethanol production report, will come in February, with reports on flour milling, and cotton stocks and processing to follow in April, Hubert Hamer, director of the statistics division of NASS told attendees of Monday’s annual USDA data users meeting in Chicago.

The widely-watched monthly U.S. soybean crush report will make its return in July along with monthly data on fats/oils production, consumption, and stocks, Hamer said.

The data NASS publishes should be “comparable” to what the Census Bureau put out up until 2000, Hamer said, adding that reporting data to the USDA will be mandatory for industry respondents.

The ethanol report will offer data on ethanol feedstocks, including corn, wheat and sorghum, along with statistics on production of byproducts such as dried distillers' grains, widely used in animal feed, and corn oil.

USDA will release its first edition of the ethanol report on Feb. 20, 2015, during its annual Agricultural Outlook Forum, Hamer said. He said the report would include three months of data from October, November and December 2014. The next report covering January of 2015 is scheduled for release on

Speaking at an annual data users' meeting in Chicago, Hamer said the first ethanol report would include three months' worth of data, from October, November and December 2014. The next report, covering January 2015, is scheduled for release on Feb. 27.