By The Numbers - part the ninety ninth

Farmers have been getting the Cadillac treatment pretty much forever. Even though non-urban population is down to 20% in this here The United States of Alabama. One of the ways is money and data support from Uncle Sugar. The Farm Bill has been mentioned here at least a few times. This recent report describes, mostly, farmers reliance on USDA data collection and reporting to run their farms. Quite a boon. But, according to the report, the last corn crop total acreage report was off by, it is believed, 5%.

Of course, the Batshit J. Moron and his merry band of acolytes don't assess that the miss report is due to the draconian slashing of employment at USDA; of course not

The Agriculture Department lost 23,000 employees in 2025, as Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency slashed jobs across the federal government. The National Agricultural Statistics Service, which produces crop reports, was one of the hardest-hit divisions; it lost 34 percent of its staff, going to about 500 employees from around 800.

The guy in charge puts the blame on lowering survey response rates

For years, the department has struggled with fewer farmers returning its surveys, one of the key data sources for crop production reports. The response rate for recent surveys was around 40 percent, according to the department, down from around 60 percent a decade ago.

What's funny about such an excuse? When you watch (or read) your fave news source, you'll get survey results on Batshit J. Moron's approval rate for various actions or his overall approval/disapprovel and the like or Americans view of abortion or immigration and the like. If you look at the fine print at the end of the report you'll see two numbers (approx. values) the sample size, generally around 2,500 (sometimes smaller), and the margin of error of the percent(s), generally around 3.4%. For 349,000,000 Americans. Now, the number of voters is about 174,000,000 in 2024.

Now, the whole point of the crop reports is to support gaming the market by commodities traders and farmers. One wants the lowest price, the other the highest. But

Farmers have a deep and direct relationship with the federal government, which sustains much of their business. Farmers participate in crop insurance and conservation programs, apply for grants and receive disaster assistance and ad hoc payments. The Agriculture Department projects that government payments will account for 29 percent of farm income this year.

Welfare kings. The tail is wagging the dog.