Improving Crop Estimates by Integrating Multiple Data Sources
Improving Crop Estimates by Integrating Multiple Data Sources

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2018-01-26

Total Pages: 149

ISBN-13: 030946529X

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The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is the primary statistical data collection agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). NASS conducts hundreds of surveys each year and prepares reports covering virtually every aspect of U.S. agriculture. Among the small-area estimates produced by NASS are county-level estimates for crops (planted acres, harvested acres, production, and yield by commodity) and for cash rental rates for irrigated cropland, nonirrigated cropland, and permanent pastureland. Key users of these county-level estimates include USDA's Farm Services Agency (FSA) and Risk Management Agency (RMA), which use the estimates as part of their processes for distributing farm subsidies and providing farm insurance, respectively. Improving Crop Estimates by Integrating Multiple Data Sources assesses county-level crop and cash rents estimates, and offers recommendations on methods for integrating data sources to provide more precise county-level estimates of acreage and yield for major crops and of cash rents by land use. This report considers technical issues involved in using the available data sources, such as methods for integrating the data, the assumptions underpinning the use of each source, the robustness of the resulting estimates, and the properties of desirable estimates of uncertainty.

Looking Forward
Looking Forward

Author: Jamie L. Pietruska

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-12-08

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 022650915X

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In the decades after the Civil War, the world experienced monumental changes in industry, trade, and governance. As Americans faced this uncertain future, public debate sprang up over the accuracy and value of predictions, asking whether it was possible to look into the future with any degree of certainty. In Looking Forward, Jamie L. Pietruska uncovers a culture of prediction in the modern era, where forecasts became commonplace as crop forecasters, “weather prophets,” business forecasters, utopian novelists, and fortune-tellers produced and sold their visions of the future. Private and government forecasters competed for authority—as well as for an audience—and a single prediction could make or break a forecaster’s reputation. Pietruska argues that this late nineteenth-century quest for future certainty had an especially ironic consequence: it led Americans to accept uncertainty as an inescapable part of both forecasting and twentieth-century economic and cultural life. Drawing together histories of science, technology, capitalism, environment, and culture, Looking Forward explores how forecasts functioned as new forms of knowledge and risk management tools that sometimes mitigated, but at other times exacerbated, the very uncertainties they were designed to conquer. Ultimately Pietruska shows how Americans came to understand the future itself as predictable, yet still uncertain.

Indirect Estimators in U.S. Federal Programs
Indirect Estimators in U.S. Federal Programs

Author: Wesley L. Schaible

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1461207215

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In 1991, a subcommittee of the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology met to document the use of indirect estimators - that is, estimators which use data drawn from a domain or time different from the domain or time for which an estimate is required. This volume comprises the eight reports which describe the use of indirect estimators and they are based on case studies from a variety of federal programs. As a result, many researchers will find this book provides a valuable survey of how indirect estimators are used in practice and which addresses some of the pitfalls of these methods.

Sociology in Government
Sociology in Government

Author: Olaf F. Larson

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2010-11

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 0271045361

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From 1919 through 1953, the U.S. Department of Agriculture housed the Division of Farm Population and Rural Life&—the first unit within the federal government established specifically for sociological research. Distinguished sociologists Charles Galpin and Carl Taylor provided key leadership for 32 of its 34 years as the Division sought to understand the social structure of rural America and to do public policy-oriented research. It reached the height of its influence during the New Deal and World War II as it helped implement modern liberal policies in America's farming sector, attempting to counteract the harsh effects of modern industrialism on the rural economy. In addition, the Division devoted resources to studying both the history and the contemporary state of rural social life. Sociology in Government offers the first detailed historical account and systematic documentation of this remarkable federal office. The Division of Farm Population and Rural Life was an archetypal New Deal governmental body, deeply engaged in research on agricultural planning and action programs for the disadvantaged in rural areas. Its work continued during World War II with farm labor and community organization work. Larson and Zimmerman emphasize the Division's pioneering practices, presenting it as one model for applying the discipline of sociology in the government setting. Published in cooperation with the American Sociological Association, Sociology in Government preserves the history of this pathbreaking research unit whose impact is still felt today.