USDA’s reputation suffers after massive revisions in US corn acres

Thousands of employees left USDA last year as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to shrink the federal government, and experts worry the shrinking staff hobbled the agency’s ability to produce accurate and timely data.

USDA’s final estimates in January for how many corn acres farmers planted and harvested in 2025 represented unprecedented increases from initial estimates in June. Already-low grain prices sank more than 5%, at a time when growers were struggling to make money.

USDA data last month “appeared to reflect an agency in disarray,” said Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist for consultancy StoneX, citing changes to acres and other estimates.

The revisions prompted USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, which releases acreage estimates, to launch an internal review, said Lance Honig, a top NASS official.

At the Farm Service Agency, another USDA branch, staffing reductions hampered employees from processing data on plantings last summer and feeding it to the statistics service, said Spiro Stefanou, a former acting USDA deputy undersecretary who resigned last fall. This delayed the statistics service from receiving a complete picture of acreage, he said.

“NASS had less information to go on,” Stefanou said. “That was going to make their estimates less reliable.”

Last summer, Trump fired a top Labor Department official following a weak scorecard of the U.S. job market, stoking concerns about the quality of federal government data.

Corn, America’s largest crop, is used to feed millions of farm animals, produce ethanol and sweeten foods including ketchup and ice cream.

Last month, farmers and analysts largely expected USDA would hardly adjust its estimate for harvested acres, already the largest since the 1930s. Instead, USDA hiked it to 91.3 million acres, up 1.3% from the previous estimate and 5.2% higher than in June.

“All of a sudden we had acres popping up all over the place,” said longtime analyst Sid Love.

Smaller revisions are common, often in the form of decreases, as poor weather can reduce acres that farmers harvest. Over the last 15 years, harvested acreage estimates on average slipped about 0.7% from June to January, according to a Reuters analysis.

Last month’s increase unexpectedly raised USDA’s corn production estimate and sank futures prices by 5.4%.