Commodity traders, economists, grain merchants and farmers are anxious for crop updates as they work to project their financial balance sheets and make spring planting decisions.
“It’s been crazy busy,” said Sara Menker, chief executive of New York-based Gro Intelligence.
The shutdown, now in its third week, has rippled across the already struggling U.S. farm economy ahead of President Donald Trump’s planned address at the American Farm Bureau conference in Louisiana on Monday. Federal loan and farm aid applications have also been delayed.
To fill the void on data, traders and farmers are relying on private crop forecasters, satellite imagery firms and brokerages offering analyzes on trade and supplies. Some have been scouring Twitter for tidbits on shifting weather patterns and rumors of grain exports, but say it is difficult to replace the USDA.
“We’re just doing the best we can, looking for as much information as is available,” said Brian Basting, economist for Illinois-based broker Advance Trading, which provides customers its own harvest and crop supply estimates.
Dan Henebry, an Illinois corn and soy farmer, said the absence of USDA data was difficult.
“You delay all these reports and the market has no idea where to go, other than trade guesses,” Henebry said.
HUNT FOR NUMBERS
Gro Intelligence has been offering free access to its data platform since Dec. 27, and released worldwide supply-demand crop forecasts on Friday.
The company’s estimates for the U.S. 2018-2019 corn crop yield were 177.4 bushels per acre, below both USDA’s last forecast and lower than the average of estimates in a Reuters survey. Gro pegged the U.S. 2018-2019 soybean yield at 50.6 bushels per acre, also below USDA and below the range of Reuters’ survey.