This is the
first time that specific reports have been identified for elimination or
reduction.
The programmes to be eliminated are:
- Annual Reports on Farm Numbers, Land in Farms and Livestock Operations - Eliminate
- Catfish and Trout Reports Eliminate all
- Annual Floriculture Report - Eliminate
- January Sheep and Goat Report - Eliminate
- July Cattle Report - Eliminate
- Annual Bee and Honey Report - Eliminate
- Annual Hops Production Report - Eliminate
- Annual Mink Report Eliminate
- Nursery Report Eliminate
- Rice Stocks June and September reports - Eliminate
The programmes to be reduced are:
- Chemical Use Reports frequency of commodity coverage
- Monthly Potato Stocks Report Go from monthly to quarterly
- Fruit and Vegetable in-season forecast and estimates Reduce from monthly and quarterly to annual report
And one programme, the Distiller Co-Products for Feed Survey is being cancelled we presume even before it began since
we do not recall every seeing any ongoing data on this subject.
Obviously, many of the planned changes have nothing to
do with the livestock and poultry sectors. A few do, however, so we
should consider the impacts their loss may have.
Farm Numbers, Land In Farms and Livestock Operations This report began in 2005 when the Farms, Land In Farms
and Livestock Operations reports were merged. It has contained
only national data (ie. no state level data) for livestock operations
by size for the past several year.
While the structure (ie. ownership, share, size, etc.) of each sector is still changing, the pace has
slowed sharply since the 90s.
January Sheep and Goat Report While not a report
(or sector) that we pay a lot of attention to, this change may be the
final straw for sheep and goat information.
The July report was
eliminated this year and we are not sure where the data for the
sheep section of the annual Production, Disposition and Income
report, released in April, will come from if this report goes too.
July Cattle Report or Cattle Inventory Report as most
people call it. This one would be missed some primarily because it
gives us a mid-year look at the numbers of heifers being retained
by both beef and dairy operations, the number of cattle in feedyards
with less than 1000 head capacities and, perhaps most useful, the
number of feeder cattle still outside of feedyards.
Distiller Co-Products for Feed Survey We are not
completely sure what this is since we can find nothing about it on
the NASS website but we believe it was an effort to determine how
much distillers co-products were being produced by beverage and
fuel ethanol distillers and thus available for feed.
That is an item we
do not know for certain at present. Most analysts simply use
USDAs annual corn for ethanol number to estimate a total annual
supply or use the Department of Energys weekly or monthly data
on ethanol output to estimate supplies over shorter runs.
Note that the data from many of the eliminated reports will
be made available less frequently or within the five-year cycle for the
Census of Agriculture. The next Census will be conducted in 2013
to reflect conditions in 2012.
Readers can get more information by contacting Sue
DuPont at 202-690-8122.
Even with the recent rebound in cattle prices, feedlots
are losing big money on current closeouts and projected
breakevens for November now exceed $131/cwt.
Those are according to the latest estimates from the Livestock Marketing Information Center in Denver. September marked the fifth straight
months of losses and losses averaged over $125/head. Note that
these returns are for custom feeding that includes a daily yardage
cost.
Some closeouts are better due to better quality, sound risk
management practices, premiums for age and source-verified
cattle or cattle that fit premium marketing programmes
