USDA Announces Request for Information on Data Products

(Washington, D.C., February 20, 2026) - At the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Outlook Forum today, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced a Request for Information (RFI) on Opportunities, Challenges, and Emerging Areas in Statistical Data, Analysis, and Research at USDA.

Numerous entities within USDA, including the Economic Research Service, the National Agricultural Statistics Service, and the Office of the Chief Economist, produce statistical data, analysis, and research that aim provide the agriculture community with timely, accurate, and useful information. While the data and statistics used to inform reports including the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, Crop Production Reports, and January and July Cattle are often considered the benchmark for other agricultural forecasts, there is always room for improvement to further enhance accuracy and usefulness.

"Ensuring farmers, ranchers, and other users of USDA data better understand the processes and methodology that go into producing these data and statistics is paramount to the integrity of these products," said Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics Dr. Scott H. Hutchins. "The RFI published today is another example of how USDA is deploying a Farmers First approach to policy and will help inform future efforts to deliver data that is useful to our customers. We rely on farmers for their survey contributions, so this request will hopefully convey our sincerity to use their data in a transparent and objective manner."

"USDA's data products have long been the gold standard in market reporting," said USDA Chief Economist Dr. Justin Benavidez. "That doesn't mean we can't make our products better. We're looking for producer-driven input that can introduce more transparency and ease of access across USDA's data outputs. We're also looking for ways to review our own accuracy and take steps to make improvements where we can. If producers don't believe in our products, we have work left to do."

The RFI will be open for public comment for 45 days and preliminary analysis of the feedback will be discussed at the 2026 Spring Data Users Meeting on April 22, 2026.

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