The Potential Implications of “Big Ag Data” for USDA Forecasts

Jesse Tack; Keith H. Coble; Robert Johansson; Ardian Harri; Barry J. Barnett

doi:10.1093/aepp/ppy028

The Potential Implications of “Big Ag Data” for USDA Forecasts

Jesse Tack, Keith H. Coble, Robert Johansson, Ardian Harri, Barry J. Barnett

Agricultural Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

The USDA produces yield and supply estimates for many crops that influence commodity markets and are used for implementing the Title I program, Agriculture Risk Coverage. Precision agriculture advances have increased the potential for the private sector to capture near-real time yield data, however, it is unclear whether they provide advantages in setting market positions since the samples are typically non-random. Here, we use yield histories from a large population of corn farms to quantify biases associated with different non-random sampling schemes for estimating aggregate yield, and demonstrate the effectiveness of benchmarking procedures for removing systematic prediction error.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	668-683
Number of pages	16
Journal	Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy
Volume	41
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/aepp/ppy028
State	Published - Dec 1 2019

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This project was supported by the Office of Chief Economist cooperative agreement #58-0111-14-018. This work is written by US Government employees and is in the public domain in the US. The findings and conclusions in this work have not been formally disseminated by the U. S. Department of Agriculture and should not be construed to represent any agency determination or policy.

Funding Information:
This project was supported by the Office of Chief Economist cooperative agreement #58‐0111‐14‐018. This work is written by US Government employees and is in the public domain in the US. The findings and conclusions in this work have not been formally disseminated by the U. S. Department of Agriculture and should not be construed to represent any agency determination or policy.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Keywords

Big data
USDA reports
market information
precision agriculture

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Development
Economics and Econometrics

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10.1093/aepp/ppy028

Cite this

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abstract = "The USDA produces yield and supply estimates for many crops that influence commodity markets and are used for implementing the Title I program, Agriculture Risk Coverage. Precision agriculture advances have increased the potential for the private sector to capture near-real time yield data, however, it is unclear whether they provide advantages in setting market positions since the samples are typically non-random. Here, we use yield histories from a large population of corn farms to quantify biases associated with different non-random sampling schemes for estimating aggregate yield, and demonstrate the effectiveness of benchmarking procedures for removing systematic prediction error.",

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The Potential Implications of “Big Ag Data” for USDA Forecasts

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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