BOONE, Iowa (DTN) -- USDA is planning multiple changes to how statistical agencies collect and use data for crop reports, including greater use of satellite imagery and precision-agriculture data.

USDA's monthly crop reports always draw significant scrutiny because of market moves and how heavily farmers rely on those reports to plan and market their crops.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Tuesday brought her roadshow to the Farm Progress Show, laying out new details about USDA's plans to improve the accuracy of crop reports. She also pressed the case that farmers are better off now than they were when the Trump administration began.

"We know we still have a long way to go, but the needle is moving in the right direction," Rollins told participants at the farm show.

Speaking to the crowd, Rollins spotlighted where she sees improvements in the farm economy and pointed to positive moves the Trump administration has made to boost domestic production of fertilizer, increase exports of some commodities such as ethanol, and the administration's decision Monday to require refiners to pick up the full reallocation of 1.7 billion gallons tied to small-refinery exemptions from the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Rollins' main talking point, though, was to announce changes in data reporting and statistics collection at agencies such as the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and its crop reports. Rollins spent a month holding talks with farmers around the country over the issue. She said there is a need to "fix" both NASS and reports such as the monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE).

"Hearing directly from the farmers, our farmers, some of you here today -- who actually fill out these surveys and rely on the data that comes from them -- has been everything as we have rebuilt this program," Rollins said.

FOUR GOALS TO DATA COLLECTION CHANGES

USDA officials highlighted four goals for the modernization plan, which include reducing burdens on farmers while pulling data from more satellite sources and potentially incorporating data from precision-agriculture tools. Those four goals, as outlined by agency officials, are:

-- Modernize the data reporting experience.

Surveys have become longer and more redundant over time, which is one reason the response level has fallen from more than 60% a decade ago to under 40% in this year's June Acreage report.

"If you want to break this down to a simpler statement, it is to reduce the burden on farmers with regard to surveys and other ways to provide their data into the system," said Scott Hutchins, USDA's undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics.

When it comes to surveys, that would include using information from farmers already in the system, so they don't have to fill out the same redundant information over and over. USDA is also looking at creating applications for farmers to do surveys over their phones.

"So, we're going to move aggressively to identify the ones that make the most sense and the ones that we can implement and reduce to practice. We also are looking to review and redesign surveys to reduce the burden on farmers, so we can have pre-filled-in data," Hutchins said.

-- Enhance acreage and yield estimation.

That was the rub last year when USDA increased corn acreage by more than 4 million acres after the June Acreage report. The department is looking at using more data from NASA satellites, as well as other companies, to make predictions and estimates. "NASA has a whole slate of new tools they have that they're just ready to put to work for us, and so we are developing a continued understanding with them and working with them daily now to move in that direction," Hutchins said. "And these tools will help us with acreage estimation, crop monitoring, yield analysis, disaster assessments, and all of the kinds of things that allow us to be rapid response to understand and to have a much more continuous understanding of how the crops are developing."

He noted how conditions of the corn crop have changed just this past month, particularly due to widespread flooding in Indiana.

-- Integrate data and technology platforms.

Hutchins discussed incorporating precision agricultural data and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve efficiency for USDA agencies -- beyond the statistical reports. That also includes reorganizing to reduce some cross-agency redundancy.

Later this week, NASS will roll out a new tool, "Ag Insights," that will allow people to more easily search for specific agricultural statistics, Hutchins said.

Richard Fordyce, USDA's undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation, also highlighted precision agricultural tools to improve USDA acreage reporting "to be more farmer-facing." Fordyce noted USDA has been working with manufacturers to look at integrating precision agricultural data to help with acreage reporting.

"That's a huge thing. Farmers are investing in this technology. They're utilizing this technology to make decisions to manage their farms. Why wouldn't we be able to use that data to do an acreage report? It seems simple, but it's actually pretty complex to get to that point, but we're going to get there," Fordyce said.

-- Expand trust and transparency with producers.

Going back to last year's acreage revisions, Hutchins said a major goal is to "minimize and eliminate surprises" in crop reports.

"When we make revisions because we have new data or different data that's significant, it creates a situation where we have to wonder which one of these is accurate," Hutchins said. "Do we have trust in this process? And we know we have to earn that trust. We have to do it continuously. We have to do it with good science and good analytics, and we also need to be much more transparent and talk about not just what we think the answer is in a particular statistic, but how we got there and why we think it's the right answer."

FARMER PERSPECTIVE

Indiana farmer Kip Tom, who served as an ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in the first Trump term, was brought on as a USDA adviser on data modernization. Tom said it's important that USDA has the latest science, so farmers have the best information to make market decisions.

"We're going to find out where the gaps are at and see what we can do to fill this, because if we don't do this right, we're going to be subject to hedge funds, big trading companies or others who will have an advantage on this," Tom said. "We can't allow that to happen."

Ben Riensche, an Iowa farmer who has also been advising USDA on data, said another issue that should be considered is when to release WASDE reports. Riensche said the reports should be released during a morning break in the grain trade so that farmers and their market advisers are able to analyze the numbers before major moves in price.

"We've got to be able to provide data equity with the people who have enormous computing power," Riensche said. "I've got to wait until my broker sees it, analyzes it and helps me with the numbers. But when the report comes out, there are people that have the ability to do that in fractions of seconds."

HOW DO YOU DETERMINE ACCURACY?

Farmers often say USDA reports are wrong when they disagree with USDA's numbers. Responding to a question from DTN, Rollins and Hutchins said determining whether a new system is going to be more accurate is one of the challenges.

"It's not an easy question to answer because there's a couple ways to look at it," Hutchins said. "One is over time, how have we varied from what we predicted at a particular point throughout the year to what actually has happened? Because we do all, at the end of the day, know what the destination is and what the actual is -- just way after kind of the market need and so forth. So, we have an opportunity to measure how we've done that."

Hutchins said USDA is looking to implement an "annual scorecard" that would detail where USDA began and how the forecasts compared with the information that the department had at the time.

BEEF ON BEEF

On a separate issue, President Donald Trump will be making more announcements on beef and the cattle herd "at the end of the week," Rollins also told reporters.

Trump has drawn fire from ranching groups over his plan to allow 300,000 metric tons of beef trim into the country at lower tariff levels. Rollins defended Trump's move, saying no president is more "pro-rancher and pro-farmer" while USDA on Monday announced efforts to try to promote heifer retention with an insurance plan and opening more Conservation Reserve Program grassland acres for grazing. But Trump also has to address affordability challenges, Rollins said.

"(Trump) believes it will significantly help the American consumer, especially the American consumer who buys ground beef, which is what most of this will be. We all eat ground beef, but those at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, that is usually the primary source of their protein, so he made that decision," Rollins said.

Rollins added she did not know where the beef trim would come from. That was being negotiated by the U.S. Trade Representative's Office. Still, Rollins said there will be more details about beef issues coming directly from Trump later this week.

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

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