NASS suspends potato, vegetable, fruit surveys

On March 12, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) decided to suspend a number of statistical surveys and reports for the remainder of the fiscal year, due to reduced funding caused by sequestration.

Before deciding upon the program suspensions, NASS reviewed its survey programs against mission- and user-based criteria, as well as the amount of time remaining in the fiscal year to conduct the surveys, with the goal of finding available cost savings and maintaining the strongest data in service to agriculture. The decision to suspend these reports was not made lightly, but was necessary given the funding situation, according to NASS.

Among the program suspensions:

• Potato stocks reports

• All non-citrus fruit, nut and vegetable forecasts and estimates

• June on- and off-farm stocks for Austrian winter peas, chickpeas, dry peas and lentils

• July acreage forecasts for Austrian winter peas, dry edible peas and lentils