Troy Joshua, Environmental, Economics, and Demographics Branch Chief at the National Agricultural Statistics Service briefs results from the Grain Crushings and Co-Products Production report at the 2015 Agricultural Outlook Forum. The report is part of the agency’s new Current Agricultural Industrial Reports program which provides a glimpse into the processing of agricultural products including fuels, cooking oils, flour, and fabric. Photo by USDA/NASS.
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At the recent Agricultural Outlook Forum I had the pleasure of speaking with hundreds of people regarding a new program I’m very excited about: the Current Agricultural Industrial Reports (CAIR). Here at NASS, we publish hundreds of reports every year on inventory, production, and values of U.S. agriculture products. The CAIR program takes us a step beyond. CAIR provides a glimpse into the processing of agricultural products such as fuels, cooking oils, flour, and fabric.
Data from the CAIR program are important to U.S. economic policy. Better data means better markets analysis, better strategic planning, better forecasting, and more well-informed business decisions and policies. That impacts every citizen.
This program is not new to the Federal government. This data series was previously part of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Industrial Reports (CIR) program which began in 1904. Unfortunately, Census had to contend with difficult budget decisions and discontinued collection of data for the CIR program in 2011. That’s when NASS, knowing the widespread impact these reports have on U.S. agriculture, stepped up to the plate and took on the agricultural portion of the program.
On February 19, we released the first report under our CAIR program. The Grain Crushings and Co-Products Production publication provides data about United States agricultural commodities consumed for alcohol and other uses as well as the production of co-products and products from October-December 2014. We also added additional pieces of data to the report, such as the amount of carbon dioxide captured.
Going forward, we plan to publish the report monthly. The most recent report was released March 2.
This was just the first report in our CAIR program. In addition to Grain Crushings and Co-Products Production, we plan several other publications within the CAIR program including:
- Flour Milling (published quarterly beginning May 1, 2015.)
- Cotton System (published monthly beginning May 1, 2015.)
- Fats & Oils: Production, Consumption and Stocks (published monthly beginning August 3, 2015.)
- Oilseed Crushings (published monthly beginning August 3, 2015.)
We will publish all of these reports online at www.nass.usda.gov just as we do with all of our reports.
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