The Agriculture Department projected last July that farmers would harvest 86.8 million acres of corn in autumn. The projection was repeatedly revised upward until, in January, the department found 1.3 million more acres of corn — an area larger than Delaware — and concluded that the final amount harvested was 91.3 million acres.
“It was a miss. No other way to call it,” said Seth Meyer, who served as the department’s chief economist until leaving in December.
The 5 percent undercount may seem small, but it was the department’s worst projection in recent memory. It came as the Trump administration was cutting staff at the Agriculture Department and as President Trump’s trade war raised prices for equipment and hurt exports.
Some people in agriculture have become increasingly worried about the reliability of department data. That skepticism could lead to a breakdown of the historically close relationship between the department and farmers it serves, they said.
“U.S.D.A. always had a great relationship with its farmers,” said Mr. Meyer, who now leads the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri. “That seems to have weakened.”
The Agriculture Department publishes thousands of reports annually on everything from county-level sorghum planting to China’s hardwood market. But its estimates of crop size are some of the most closely read reports. Traders use information from the reports to immediately buy and sell commodities, affecting the prices that farmers receive for their crops. Farmers use the information to make decisions about how and when to try to sell their crop for the most money.
Department officials haven’t offered an official explanation for the miss, but many outside it point to staffing cuts and lower survey response rates.
The Agriculture Department lost 23,000 employees in 2025, as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency slashed jobs across the federal government. The National Agricultural Statistics Service, which produces crop reports, was one of the hardest-hit divisions; it lost 34 percent of its staff, going to about 500 employees from around 800.
The corn miss prompted Farm Journal, an agricultural publication, to ask respondents to its monthly survey whether they remained confident in department data. Most of the farmers, ranchers and economists polled responded “no.”
“People trade the reports whether the reports are true or not,” said Shay Foulk, who farms 1,500 acres and runs a seed business near Peoria, Ill. Since farmers are trading in commodity markets against sophisticated managed funds and trading algorithms, he said, “the farmer just feels they are at a disadvantage if those numbers are inaccurate.”
For years, the department has struggled with fewer farmers returning its surveys, one of the key data sources for crop production reports. The response rate for recent surveys was around 40 percent, according to the department, down from around 60 percent a decade ago.
“When farmers lose trust in the agency, they don’t want to participate as much, and so there is a direct line between low staff and low participation and incorrect data,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, in an interview.
In March, Democrats on the Agriculture Committee wrote a letter to Scott Hutchins, the under secretary for research, education and economics at the Agriculture Department, concerned about the reliability of the department’s data. They also said the department’s proposed relocation of employees from Washington to hubs around the country “threatens to worsen the loss of key institutional knowledge and staff capacity.”
Mr. Hutchins, who was appointed by Mr. Trump last year, said in an interview that farmers still trusted the agency but had “well-founded frustrations” with the corn misestimate.
Asked whether losing employees had anything to do with the miss, he said, “Absolutely, unequivocally no.” Mr. Hutchins added that the department’s ability to develop new efficiencies had been “enhanced tremendously” by the departures, and that it was using more remote sensing abilities and artificial intelligence to collect data.
“I don’t understand what all of the additional staff might’ve been doing for us to still produce the same outcome with the current staff that we have,” he said.
Mr. Hutchins did say he was worried about the department’s entering a data doom loop if response rates continued to fall. “It is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “The fewer surveys we have, the larger the standard error we will have in estimates.”
The corn miss was a major topic of conversation last week at the semiannual Agriculture Department data users’ meeting, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. It is normally a low-key event attended by departmental economists, academics, agricultural company representatives and others, where heads of different divisions preview new data products and answer esoteric methodology questions. But this time, there was a heavy focus on heightening transparency and increasing survey response rates.
Lance Honig, the acting director of the department’s statistics division, suggested that 2025 was an anomaly. Because of the large amount of corn planted and record yields, the normal statistical models were off.
“I would suggest that the 2025 crop season was a bit different than anything we had seen in, oh, I don’t know, what would that be — 80, 90 years,” Mr. Honig said.
The Agriculture Department recently put out a request for information for commentary and ideas about its data products. It is also planning to increase the number of farmers surveyed for its acreage reports, pending approval from the Office of Management and Budget for the higher cost to send out more surveys.
One meeting attendee, Bill Lapp, a food industry consultant, suggested that surveys be made mandatory for those receiving money from the government’s bailout package for farmers. “For $12 billion, can’t you get them to fill out a damn postcard a couple of times a year?” he asked in a question-and-answer session.
Farmers have a deep and direct relationship with the federal government, which sustains much of their business. Farmers participate in crop insurance and conservation programs, apply for grants and receive disaster assistance and ad hoc payments. The Agriculture Department projects that government payments will account for 29 percent of farm income this year.
These programs run on data obtained from farmers. They must certify the number of acres they plant with the Farm Service Agency in order to participate in income support programs. To get crop insurance, farmers must give their financial information to the Risk Management Agency. So when they are also mailed surveys asking detailed questions about their crops, some farmers get annoyed, because they believe the department has, or should have, the data.
Mr. Foulk, the Illinois farmer, said farmers were in part disgruntled with the federal government because of their declining influence. On tariffs, biofuels policy and the farm bill, farmers haven’t gotten what they wanted lately.
“We had the privilege of having this outsized voice, and now we’re not as loud,” he said.
Farmers are unlikely to stop participating in Agriculture Department programs that directly benefit them, no matter how they feel, said Mr. Meyer, the former agency economist. But their very viability is underpinned by data and analysis.
“Supporting data collection has historically and continues to support the things that directly impact them,” he said.
Kevin Draper is a business correspondent covering the agriculture industry. He can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].
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