Death comes to us all. Life's but a walking shadow | The USDA only checks about 2500 locations (x2samples) to get their Objective Yield Survey out of 80-some million acres in 6-8 states. At a thousandth of an acre per sample, that's equivalent to 5000 x 1/1000 or 5 acres out of 80 million. Now, I know that the science of statistics is pretty well developed but it's hard for me to believe you can sample 5 out of 80 million and be sure you've a truly representative sample. And keep in mind, the other part of the yield estimate is the Producer Survey, where a sample of producers are queried. Early in the season they were pretty optimistic. It is just possible that if the producers were over-optimistic and actual yields are lower than expected we could still see a substantial reduction as the final yield checks & producer reports come in.
How likely is it? I don't know but it's still a possibility. |
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