NASS Proposing Changes to County-level Crop Statistics

(WASHINGTON, DC) On Thursday, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) announced plans to change its county estimates program. NASS is the federal statistical agency responsible for producing official data about U.S. agriculture. Because of the increasing importance of county-level crop statistics, the agency is considering eliminating the publication of Agricultural Statistics District (ASD) level estimates for annual crop county estimates. Some county-level estimates do not meet publication standards and must be withheld from publication. In order to maintain the confidentiality of these counties, at least one additional county within the same ASD must also be suppressed. Sometimes this results in the suppression of county-level estimates that would otherwise qualify for publication. Without the need for ASD level publication, any other county within the state could be used to provide the complimentary coverage, ultimately leading to more counties published within each state. This change would align the publishing approach for the Census of Agriculture and the annual county estimates programs. To provide comments or other information on this topic, e-mail input by January 6, 2019, to nass@nass.usda.gov with COUNTY ESTIMATES COMMENTS as the subject line.