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Weddings, dads, and grads make June a joyful month, but here at the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, June is eventful for a different reason altogether. It’s when we conduct some of the most widely-anticipated agricultural surveys. During the first two weeks of the month, we’ll survey more than 125,000 farmers across the United States. Although NASS surveys and publishes reports throughout the year, June means game on!
In this single month, we conduct the June Area Survey, the June Agricultural Survey (also known as the Crops/Stocks Survey), and the June Hogs and Pigs Survey. Through these, we will gather information about this season's crop production, supplies of grain stocks, livestock inventories, land use, detailed estimates on the number of acres producers planted of particular agricultural commodities, and much more. Because of the prominent influence and impact these surveys have in the agricultural industry and on government programs and policy, its important farmers and ranchers participate.
While we conduct two of these surveys several times a year, the third one - the June Area Survey - is unique. For this survey, we are reaching out to nearly 40,000 producers who operated 11,000 selected land segments. NASS uses aerial photographs to identify the segments, and we personally visit and interview farmers about the segments. This helps us account for every acre of land, agricultural activity, and land use within segments. Crop acreage, grain stocks, cattle, hog, sheep, and poultry inventories, land values, cash rents, farm numbers, and value of sales data are collected. That’s a whole lot of information!
As Census and Survey Division Director at NASS, I oversee the entire data collection process and I am grateful for the participation of our farmers. It is only through their cooperation that we obtain the most timely, accurate, and useful statistics; data that impact so many important aspects of American agriculture. Their support ensures agricultural decisions are made with careful analysis of the finest data available.