November 3, 2008

 

ASA Weekly: USDA detects error in latest soy acreage data

 

 

USDA's National Agricultural Statistics service (NASS) last week issued a corrected October Crop Production Report after an error was found in the data they used to prepare the report.

 

Joe Prusacki, director of the NASS Statistics Division confirmed that this is the first time NASS has ever re-issued a crop production report from a lockup situation. NASS first became aware of the problem on Tuesday, October 21, 2008 during a teleconference between NASS and Farm Service Agency (FSA) staff.

 

The FSA staff enquired about the difference in the figures of the NASS' October Crop Production report and the (CCC Form) 578 data. Prusacki said this was what NASS had and the FSA indicated that it was not the data that they had.

 

What happened was that FSA maintains their acreage data collected from the 578 form filings from producers in two locations, one in their own mainframe computer and the other was on a system called data mart.

 

The latter is a system which is more accessible for NASS and other agencies. While FSA is not sure as to how it happened, it did say that it would take two weeks to determine the exact cause, the 578 data did not get properly transferred from the FSA mainframe to the data mart system.

 

Another USDA official said the Ag Department is not sure if it was a script or batch file error that may have occurred after the reset of a computer system. The source said that USDA has a backup to obtain the accurate information.

 

NASS statisticians compiling the October Crop Production report in lockup noticed their own survey data did not comply with the increase in soy acres that was alerted by the FSA data. Prusacki said they have been using the data from the October report since 2003 without any problem as it reflects what NASS's own survey shows. Even though there were questions as to why the survey had a different result, the NASS's tracking of the FSA data indicated should be an accurate indicator.

 

NASS raised soy acreage by 2.138 million acres (865,000 hectares) and lowered corn acreage by 93,000 (37,600 hectares) in that October report. In the updated report, soy planted and harvested acreage was lowered by 1.1 million acres (445,000 hectares) from the initially released October level and USDA trimmed 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) from US corn acreage.

 

Given the late plantings and reporting of acreage and the strong soy prices that were noticed about the time the acreage reports were made, NASS were still able to rationalize what was shown in the FSA data.

 

Once the data problem was discovered, Prusacki said they had made the only decision possible and that was to come up with a corrected October Crop Production report. It was an inevitable losing situation and if NASS were to put up a corrected version of the report, they would be criticized.

 

As for precaution measures in the future, Prusacki said NASS will still conduct their queries on the data mart information and FSA would also have to run such a procedure off their mainframe system as well.

 

Global soy food market on the rise

 

Over the years, soy foods have shifted from small natural food stores to mainstream food products, supported by improvement in taste and product innovations, according to a new study titled Soy Foods: A Global Strategic Business Report, published by Global Industry Analysts, Inc.

 

The popular demand for soy foods has been hitting a high mainly due to health promoting qualities or disease prevention benefits. Increase in aged population also influences the commercials viability of soy products and depicts increased concern for major disorders such as heart diseases, primarily common between 35 and 54 years of age.

 

In addition, soy proteins are alternatively used as meat substitute that encourages aged consumers to consume soy products.

 

The global soy foods market is dominated by Asia-Pacific, with sales estimated at US$10.2 billion, as stated by Global industry Analysts. North America and Europe account for nearly 49 percent of the global soy food sales. Whole soy food market in the US is projected to reach US$4.4 billion by 2010.

 

Whole soy as a form of direct food is gaining its reputation for a healthy growth rate in Asian countries, where the soy has been a natural ingredient of daily diet for years. Western countries, on the other hand, are also showing signs of growing acceptance towards whole soy as direct food beyond crushing, though historically, they have been using it mainly in the crushed form as soy protein products and soy foods.

 

The soy oil market in Asia-Pacific is projected to register a compound annual growth rate of 7.4 percent over the period 2001-2010.

 

As soy gains popularity and soy products increase in number, soy market continues to experience many remarkable changes, according to the study. A few products keeping up with the popularity would be soy dairy products, soy snacks such as soy chips, nuts and protein bars.

 

Rising popularity of soy snacks is attributed to the consumers' demand for healthy and convenient snacks. The reports also state that companies are increasingly turning towards soy products addressing women health. Several soy supplement manufacturers introduced unique formulations, including breakfast cereals and bars market as rich sources of soy protein and consumption trends of most women in western countries have changed considerably in recent years, helping to boost soy product demand.