USDA Report Schedule Still Uncertain Due To Partial Government Shutdown

As the partial government shutdown moves into its thirteenth day, questions continue to arise on the impacts on USDA reports. Already, the agency is not releasing daily or weekly export sales updates and other publications have not been released due to the shutdown. A question still remains on the barrage of reports USDA is scheduled to release January 11, including the Annual Summary, Winter Wheat & Rye Seedings, Grain Stocks and WASDE. Contacts believe that it would take USDA analysts about one week to complete their analysis of data to be able to release the reports in question. Data gathering for the reports from the National Ag Statistics Service (NASS) should have been completed prior to the shutdown that started December 21, but analysis of the data is still needed. In 2013, USDA canceled the release of the October Crop Production and WASDE reports when the government shutdown ended.