The partial closure of the US federal government effective today has disrupted most, but not all, data reported by the many divisions of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Most USDA web pages today included notices that no updates would be made during the lapse of funding, including the site that hosts the USDA's closely-watched World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (Wasde) report due out 9 October.
Data updates were available today from the Agricultural Marketing Service, which distributes some of the USDA's pricing, livestock inventory, and animal processing data. But the Economics, Statistics, and Market Information System (Esmis), which provides reports on oilseed crushing, corn use, milk pricing, and other data, did not provide scheduled updates that were expected today.
The website for the National Agricultural Statistics Service (Nass) — the primary survey data collecting branch within the USDA — was one of the pages that indicated updates will be made periodically amid the shutdown "... for mission critical functions". But it is not clear whether the well-defined, publicly released schedule of reports tied to the Nass data will be maintained during that time. Current data updates expected today, such as oilseed crushing and corn use for ethanol production have so far not been made.
The USDA site that would normally post on Thursday US crop export sales data used to monitor the global demand for US agricultural products currently says no updates will be made.
