USDA to test satellites, AI to try to improve crop estimates amid farmer criticism

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is launching a pilot project that will rely more heavily on technology as part of a broader effort to improve its closely watched U.S. crop acreage and yield estimates, Secretary Brooke Rollins said on ‌Tuesday, as the agency faces mounting criticism from farmers and traders over the reliability of government agricultural data.

Rollins discussed USDA's data modernization plan at the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, following a month-long series of listening sessions with farmers and agricultural groups. "We will conduct a pilot to evaluate the use of improved satellite imagery, working with NASA and other federal government agencies across the country ‌to figure out how we can make this reporting more accurate," Rollins said during the farm conference.

Under the plan, the project will use geospatial tools and crop models alongside farmer ‌polls to estimate crop acreage and yields. The department also said it would explore the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The announcement follows complaints about the reliability of department data from farmers, grain traders and economists after deep staff cuts and unprecedented increases between initial and final estimates of how many acres of corn U.S. farmers planted and harvested in 2025.

The data collection changes are intended to reduce the amount of information USDA repeatedly asks farmers ⁠to provide while ​improving the timeliness and accuracy of its statistics. USDA ⁠said it would also provide farmers with more information about its methodologies, survey response rates and limitations in its data. Much of the criticism USDA has faced has centered on the National Agricultural Statistics Service, whose closely watched reports can ⁠move commodity markets, affect the prices crop farmers get for their harvests and influence federal farm programs. After the January final estimates were released, already low grain prices sank more than 5%, at a time ​when growers were struggling to make money.

Rollins' trip to Iowa this week comes soon after the non-partisan election analysis group Cook Political Report shifted Iowa's U.S. Senate race from "leans ⁠Republican" to "toss up" in the agriculture-dominated state, where farmers have struggled with tariffs, and rising diesel and fertilizer costs in the wake of the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran. The race is widely seen as competitive. Democrats, eager to win control of ⁠the ​U.S. Senate this fall, need to win all their current seats and pick up four more, with some of those wins from states long held as Republican strongholds like Iowa.

USDA launched its listening sessions at Minnesota Farmfest on August 4. Rollins plans to host more listening sessions through this fall, USDA spokesman Harry Fones told Reuters on Tuesday. The sessions have exposed deep ⁠frustration among farmers over the reliability of USDA statistics, staffing cuts at the agency and other Trump administration policies affecting an already strained farm economy. Rollins herself has acknowledged the loss of ⁠confidence, saying USDA needs to rebuild farmers' trust in ⁠its data.

They also have at times become forums for farmers to vent broader grievances. When Rollins visited the Iowa State Fair last month, she faced criticism from cattle producers over President Donald Trump's announcement that the United States would increase imports of Argentine beef -- a move ‌intended to lower consumer prices but ‌which producers feared would hurt cattle prices. (Karl Plume reported in Boone, Iowa, and P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago. ​Editing by Emily Schmall and Aurora Ellis)