Death comes to us all. Life's but a walking shadow | Have you ever read the error estimates for the USDA reports. They use forty years of statistics to convince themselves that their error are below a percent or so. What they forget is that twenty years ago corn was grown in far fewer states, many fewer acres were grown meaning it was much easier to keep track of. When you go from 50 million acres to 97 million acres and get rid of more extension agents etc. the possibility of significant error increases.
You realise of course that the best way for the USDA to determine the actual planted acres would be to poll all the seed companies as to seed purchased and replant seed purchased minus returned seed then apply a reasonble population factor. Certainly some farmers will keep unplanted seed for the next year but that should average out to zero when added to seed retain from the previous year and planted.
There are what, a couple hundred seed companies give or take a few. With a few hours of telephone calls they could have a really credible answer. |
Corn- Crop Size change
