USDA leaders pledge transparency and data fixes after RFI, promise year‑in‑review and sample boosts

Deputy Secretary Steven Vaden told the USDA data users meeting that "the data that we provide moves markets," and said the department will treat comments to a recent request for information as part of an ongoing dialogue to improve data quality and transparency.

USDA officials said the RFI — which closed after a 45‑day comment period and generated roughly 250 submissions that referenced ERS, NASS and other agencies — highlighted repeated user concerns about documentation, access and apparent revisions. Kelly Magcguire, administrator of the Economic Research Service, said ERS has already begun near‑term actions: mission‑to‑mission consultations with program offices (starting with Food and Nutrition Service), hiring a TechForce data scientist to accelerate machine‑readable and AI‑ready data practices, and issuing additional technical bulletins to improve methods documentation.

"This is not a one‑time thing," Vaden said. "We've got to engage in a constant feedback loop in order to improve." He also said USDA will publish, for the first time this year, a comprehensive year‑in‑review report that traces major commodity forecasts against final outcomes to identify where forecasts were accurate, where weather or unforeseeable events caused misses, and where systemic issues merit policy or methodological change.

NASS and other agencies will act on specific RFI recommendations, officials said. NASS plans to increase sample sizes for the June crop survey (about a 35% set increase in the docket under review) and roughly 10% for later quarterly surveys to boost usable responses and precision, a step the agency expects will reduce uncertainty in key acreage and production estimates. Lance Honig, chair of the Agricultural Statistics Board (NASS), said the changes are part of a broader strategy that also embraces administrative data integration (FSA and RMA records), improved prefilled online forms for census and recurring surveys, and expanded geospatial validation.

Agency leaders emphasized communications and user outreach as parallel priorities. "We heard a clear demand for better documentation and plain‑language explanations," Magcguire said, adding ERS will accelerate publication of technical bulletins alongside regular data releases. Joe from NAS and other agency leads also committed to modernizing dissemination tools — including a planned release‑oriented web platform, a pilot AI assistant for plain‑language queries, and greater use of dashboards — to make methods and uncertainty measures easier for external users to find.

Next steps: Agencies said they will post RFI follow‑up material and a set of answers to meeting questions online, begin mission‑to‑mission meetings with priority program partners, proceed with the proposed sampling increases (subject to Office of Management clearance), and publish the initial year‑in‑review prototype by the end of the marketing year. Officials asked industry groups and other intermediaries to help encourage survey participation so official statistics better reflect producers' conditions.

The meeting concluded with agencies promising to post written answers to unanswered online questions and to continue outreach through regular data users forums and the upcoming Outlook conference.