I've been meaning to point this out.. but didn't want to cause a ruckus.. 

Due to budget cuts in extension.. Kansas is gradually adopting a district Agent system vs a County system.. where several counties go together to "share" an agent.

NASS get's it's "crop ratings" (as I understand it..) from weekly reports by extension agents.  Ours recently retired and stated that his biggest duties were for horticultural requests.. trees and lawns etc.  Furthermore that the Ag duties.. "were not that big of a deal.. important but.. down the list."

I would think that just losing a percentage of reporters would lower the overall effectiveness of the data collection...???

Still I imagine that the Crop ratings system is still pretty reliable.. but not as reliable maybe as it once was.. and explain above why this could (??) be the case.

fwiw.

One of my college professors built a whole yield projection analysis over the subjectivity of what some extension agents viewed as 

"good"

or "excellent"

or just "fair"

looking corn as they drive by..

"Is that fairly good corn or just good?" 

Could mean 20 bu to the acre difference.. to someone's model..

???

To be fair.. I don't really know either till we put a combine in the field.  Some choppers though are reporting some pretty stout numbers though.. if it's not burned up.  "depends."