Three lawmakers who oversee the USDA budget urged Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to reinstate a handful of reports that were cancelled recently for budgetary reasons. “These reports provide critical supply-and-demand data that are not available in any other [USDA] report and are essential to preventing market volatility,” wrote Reps. Andy Harris and Sanford Bishop and Sen. John Hoeven.
Harris, a Maryland Republican, chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee on USDA and FDA funding. Bishop, a Georgia Democrat, is the senior Democrat on the subcommittee. Hoeven, of North Dakota, is the senior Republican on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee overseeing USDA and FDA. Farm groups including the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association have called for revival of the reports, which include a semiannual cattle inventory report and county-level estimates of crops and livestock.
USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service has scheduled a 30-minute webinar on Wednesday “to spotlight available data for recently discontinued programs.”
“USDA has the authority and flexibility to quickly reinstate these reports and avoid further disruptions in the agricultural markets. We urge USDA to reinstate these reports and begin collecting the necessary data as soon as possible,” said the lawmakers.