Efforts Underway for August Crop Report

Currently, hundreds of USDA crop evaluators are inspecting corn, soy beans, wheat and cotton fields around the country.  Lance Honig with the USDA Statistics Services said they are gathering data for the August Crop Report, the first report of the year based partly on field evaluations.

"You're talking four or five thousand samples across the different crops across the different states and a pretty short time frame to get this work done. And it's usually wrapping up, the field work aspect of it, by the first or second of the month because there's a lot of lab work that has to happen...a lot of things that have to take place after that. So, you've got a really short window to get out and visit a lot of fields."

And starting Monday, the USDA will begin calling a lot of producers.

"More than 20,000 producers, and we're going to ask them to tell us what do you expect your yields to be this year, based on the conditions you are seeing."

So, the field and farmer's surveys, the weather, and satellite imagery will be the basis of the crop report, coming out August 10th.

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