Reuters — The U.S. Department of Agriculture is taking over a series of industrial grain and oilseed reports discontinued in 2011 by the U.S. Census Bureau, but USDA will not begin publishing data until 2015, a spokesman said Monday.
The reports being relaunched include statistics for the dry and wet alcohol milling and flour milling sectors, as well as the cotton, fats and oilseeds industries.
The reports, discontinued due to Census budget cuts, were closely followed by traders and analysts to gauge monthly consumption of grains and oilseeds.
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Among the reports to resume will be the soybean crush report, which provided key data on how many soybeans were processed into soyoil and soymeal each month. Trade sources had hoped the reports would resume in late 2014.
But Alex Minchenkov, a spokesman for the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), said “it’s not going to be this year.”
“I am hoping early 2015, but 2015 is basically as concrete as I can give you,” Minchenkov said.
USDA has begun reaching out to the industry and plans to survey 200 ethanol facilities and 183 flour mills. Data collection could begin next month, Minchenkov said.
— Reporting for Reuters by Julie Ingwersen in Chicago.
