National Agricultural Statistics Service NASS

USDA began publishing crop reports in 1863, a year after the department was founded, to give farmers the same market information that speculators had. The work was organized under several names before the National Agricultural Statistics Service took its current name in 1961. It is one of the thirteen principal federal statistical agencies and is led by an Administrator.

NASS surveys farmers and ranchers to produce hundreds of reports a year on planted acreage, crop yields, livestock inventories, prices, and farm labor. Market-moving reports such as monthly crop production estimates are prepared under lockup security and released at a set minute so that no trader gets an early look. Since 1997 NASS has also conducted the Census of Agriculture, taken every five years, which counts every farm and ranch in the country, a job previously done by the Census Bureau.

Survey response rates among farmers have fallen for years, raising concerns about accuracy. In 2025 NASS discontinued several reports, including a midyear cattle inventory and some county-level estimates, citing budget and staffing limits. Agency officials said the cuts focused resources on core reports, while farm groups and economists warned that less public data would give the largest private firms an informational advantage over individual producers.