Jake Guse, a crop scout on this year’s Pro Farmer Crop Tour, collects corn samples in northwestern Indiana. The tour relies on boots-on-the-ground efforts to gauge the size and health of the corn and soybean crop. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein <\/p>\n
FREDERICKSBURG, Iowa – Kyle Wendland stepped away from his engineering degree two decades ago to follow his father \u2013 not just into farming corn, but into a world of debt, grit, and stubborn faith he could wrest a living from Iowa\u2019s soil.<\/p>\n
He calls his place Comeback Farms, after his family nearly lost the land in the 1980s farm crisis.<\/p>\n
This summer, with bills mounting and a farm economy in recession, he led a team through the sweltering Midwest, scouting fields and sizing up what President Donald Trump\u2019s administration said would be the biggest corn crop in U.S. history \u2013 a bounty that\u2019s helped keep prices at multi-year lows.<\/p>\n
Iowa farmer Kyle Wendland holds his daughter Mila, 5, in the backyard of their home at Comeback Farms near Fredericksburg, Iowa, during a short break in the crop tour. REUTERS\/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN<\/p>\n
Measuring ears of corn by hand may seem a relic in an age of satellites and artificial intelligence. Yet the annual survey by the Pro Farmer Crop Tour felt like a rural quest for signs that Washington was now wrong \u2013 that disease or something unseen would result in a lower forecast.<\/p>\n
As Trump fired government statisticians, farmers and traders have questioned whether the quality of U.S. Department of Agriculture data, long a market backbone, would hold up, heightening interest in <\/b>the crop tour. More than 15,000 USDA employees<\/a>, or about 15% of its workforce, have taken financial incentives to leave the agency under Trump\u2019s downsizing mandate. USDA temporarily removed some climate data<\/a> from its websites, delayed a key trade report<\/a> and deleted language tying Trump\u2019s tariffs to a widening trade deficit. Agency staff shuttered research<\/a>, and were <\/b>obliged to correct export sales notices. It was a portent of more to come, with the federal government shutdown freezing the majority of USDA data <\/b>or forcing it offline<\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n A USDA spokesperson told Reuters the workforce reductions prior to the government shutdown had \u201cnot had an impact on the Department\u2019s ability to deliver timely, accurate, and useful data in service to American agriculture.\u201d USDA also said that it is reviewing all non-statutory surveys and reports \u201cto ensure wise use of taxpayer dollars, improve efficiency, and eliminate unnecessary burdens.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House directed questions about USDA reports and accuracy of its data to the agency.<\/p>\n In the heat of summer, Wendland\u2019s mind turned to walking fields and seeing for himself how the Corn Belt\u2019s crop was holding up. If conditions were good, it would mean big yields, low prices and farmers facing a third straight year of losses. Wendland\u2019s own farm was crowded with corn worth less than it cost him to grow.<\/p>\n If crop conditions had worsened since the USDA forecast though, tighter supplies could push prices higher.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are looking for hope out here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Kyle Wendland and agronomist Josh Thiessen push through dense rows of corn, stretching high above their heads. They count ears, measure cobs and check for disease to gauge the health of the crop. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein<\/p>\n WITH FEW OPTIONS, FARMERS BET ON CORN <\/p>\n Farm debt is set to hit a record high this year as global grain flows shift, deepening the downturn in an industry battered by trade policies set in motion under Trump, largely maintained under Democratic president Joe Biden, and broadened in Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n China, usually the top buyer of U.S. soybeans, hasn\u2019t purchased a bushel from this year\u2019s crop. Last year, it bought 45% of U.S. soybean exports.<\/p>\n Anticipating trouble, many farmers planted more corn. They bet exports to Mexico and Canada, ethanol production and livestock feed would keep prices afloat. <\/p>\n A vendor sells Trump merchandise near Hebron, Indiana. Across the Corn Belt, the president is a visible presence at roadside stands and the impact of his policies is felt in the grain markets shaped by his policies. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein<\/p>\n Instead, the season stayed mild. Fields flourished. Prices drifted lower. Farmers\u2019 age-old fix \u2013 to boost yields and grow their way out of the problem \u2013 was no fix at all when the fields were this full and their bills so big.<\/p>\n Iowa corn farmers who rent land \u2013 a common practice \u2013 need $4.58 a bushel this year to break even, according to Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. In August, the average cash price: $3.89.<\/p>\n Iowa cattleman and crop scout Mike Berdo tosses corn feed to his herd at his farm in Washington, Iowa. Low grain prices have eased feed costs for the family livestock operation. Wall Street and rural America have long tracked the Pro Farmer Crop Tour. The boots-on-the-ground survey of more than 1,600 corn and soybean fields is conducted by farmers, traders, brokers and government researchers, and timed to when corn reveals its fate. In July, the plants typically pollinate, setting the crop\u2019s potential; by August, that promise either fills out or fails.<\/p>\n The tour\u2019s hand-written counts helped fill gaps in government data, too. USDA stopped collecting<\/a> corn and soybean samples for its August crop production report after an agency audit during Trump\u2019s first term. These days, the agency leans on satellites and farmer surveys, done in late July and early August. Just 14,900 farmers took part this year<\/a>, nearly 27% fewer than the 20,300 producers surveyed in 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n On August 12, USDA predicted the largest corn crop since 1866: 16.7 billion bushels, enough corn to fill every barn, bin, and crib in America and still feed the nation\u2019s livestock for half a year. Corn prices dropped. <\/p>\n On social media, farmers insisted USDA had missed woes all too glaring in their backyards \u2013 plants with tassels wrapped too tight, hail and wind battering fields.<\/p>\n Kyle Wendland checks his own corn fields at his farm in Fredericksburg, Iowa, after he and other scouts on the tour spotted signs of crop disease. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein<\/p>\n Five days later, Wendland and his fellow crop scouts \u2013 more than 50 farmers, grain brokers and commodity traders \u2013 rolled into Dublin, Ohio, in a caravan of pickups loaded with beer. Another group pulled into South Dakota. Several USDA staff joined the tour, eager to check field conditions too.<\/p>\n Scouts like Wendland \u2013 on his 18th tour \u2013 said they believed USDA\u2019s forecasts because they knew the people behind them. They\u2019d tromped fields together, traded stories over drinks in parking lots.<\/p>\n Still, nature always changes, they said. What\u2019s right one week can be wrong the next.<\/p>\n Crop scouts gather in a hotel parking lot in Bloomington, Illinois, after a day in the field to share notes and a few beers. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein <\/p>\n On the last day of the tour, scouts Mike Berdo and Kyle Wendland unwind beside their trucks in Rochester, Minnesota. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein <\/p>\n STOP EVERY 13 MILES <\/p>\n Launched by the Illinois Farm Bureau in the 1970s to gauge crop health, the tour expanded under news and marketing firm Pro Farmer <\/b>to <\/b>Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska.<\/p>\n In Ohio, in <\/b>a hotel meeting room, former Wall Street trader Peter Meyer outlined the rules: stop every 13 miles, sample and measure 30 feet of corn, count soybean pods longer than a quarter-inch. Randomness was the point \u2013 hundreds of imperfect samples stitched into a number that was a snapshot, not a guarantee.<\/p>\n Outside the tour, online anger spilled into real life. The chief economist from StoneX Group, a financial services firm, was bombarded with online threats after the company pegged the U.S. corn crop at 16.334 billion bushels on Aug. 4.<\/p>\n Crop scouts measure and record the lengths of ears of corn from a field in Marshall County, Illinois. The data is compiled and used to estimate corn yields and crop potential. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein <\/p>\n Stop every 13 miles, sample and measure 30 feet of corn, count soybean pods longer than a quarter inch.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Some anger is rooted in fear. Farm debt is expected to hit nearly $600 billion this year, a record. <\/b>As credit conditions deteriorate, risk-wary bankers are tightening lending practices, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and farm lenders. <\/p>\n For debt-heavy growers, that can mean higher interest rates <\/b>to cover spring planting or being denied by their existing lender, according to interviews with a dozen grain farmers.<\/p>\n As the scouts crisscrossed the Midwest, trouble was spreading that farmers may not have seen when talking to USDA in late July. Southern rust, a plant disease, freckled corn leaves, pustules black as pitch or bright as paprika. Spores clung to shirts and ballcaps.<\/p>\n Kyle Wendland carries corn samples and a rope used to mark off 30-foot sections of field in Howard County, Iowa. Scouts collect and count ears to estimate yields across the Midwest. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein <\/p>\n Scout Dustin Guy examines a corn leaf speckled with Southern rust in Indiana. The plant disease was spotted across the Corn Belt. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein <\/p>\n Kyle Wendland checks his own corn crop with local agronomist Josh Thiessen, looking for signs of plant disease. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein <\/p>\n Still, the crop was massive. Scout photos of heavy ears and dense rows spread online. Farmers grew testy, as the tone online turned from anxious to derision. <\/p>\n One afternoon, Iowa cattleman Mike Berdo, a 6-foot-4 wall of good humor, pulled his yellow pickup onto a field driveway to take samples. A man from a nearby farmhouse blocked him in, accusing him of trespassing.<\/p>\n Berdo explained he was with the tour, offered a hat, tried to smooth things over. The man drove off in a huff.<\/p>\n COST OF ABUNDANCE<\/p>\n While big agribusinesses can afford pricey private analytics, many farmers in the U.S. and worldwide rely on government data to help guide planting and marketing decisions.<\/p>\n There are fewer people producing that information. At the USDA\u2019s National Agricultural Statistics Service, roughly a third \u2013 243 staff \u2013 left through the administration\u2019s incentive programs as of May<\/a>. The Economic Research Service lost 78 staff, or about 27%. That was before the shutdown. About half of USDA\u2019s 85,907 employees were slated for furlough when the government shuttered this month, according to the agency\u2019s lapse-of-funding plan<\/a>. At ERS, 94% of staff was furloughed; at NASS, 91%. How many USDA jobs might ultimately be eliminated remains unclear.<\/p>\n USDA data and research can swing commoditymarkets, raising or crushing crop values and triggering algorithmic trades. What matters most, traders said, isn\u2019t precision so much as consistency: whether the agency\u2019s data aligns with market expectations.<\/p>\n A drone view shows corn being loaded onto a truck from a grain elevator near Sumner, Iowa. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein <\/p>\n That\u2019s why alarms went off in May when the USDA delayed a quarterly trade outlook and stripped out analysis linking a widening farm trade deficit to Trump\u2019s tariffs. When it finally appeared, the tables were there; the analysis was gone.<\/p>\n Then came mistakes. In July, USDA announced a 135,000-ton corn sale to China \u2013 later corrected to South Korea. In September, it said China bought 68,000 tons of soybeans from this year\u2019s crop. The sale happened in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some data sets are gone for good: USDA scrapped the Agricultural Labor Survey, used to help set H-2A guest worker wages, and the long-running Household Food Security Survey, a benchmark for hunger. Other reports halted by the Biden administration for budgetary reasons, such as the July Cattle Report, were revived. <\/p>\n On August 22, Pro Farmer analyzed the data and released its estimate: 16.204 billion bushels, a tour record but smaller than USDA\u2019s lofty outlook. Online, scouts were pilloried by analysts for bowing to farmer pressure to put out a lower forecast, and chastised by farmers for estimating too much. \u201cOur opinion about the crop has not changed,\u201d said Pro Farmer economist Lane Akre. \u201cThe data speaks for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Rows of shucked corn line the foreground as panelists speak to a packed ballroom on the final day of the Pro Farmer Crop Tour in Rochester, Minnesota. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein <\/p>\n Emily Flory Carolan, the tour’s data coordinator, works with colleagues in a Rochester, Minnesota, hotel room to prepare final production estimates. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein <\/p>\n Farmers and industry professionals listen to field updates – about the state of the crop and signs of disease – during a tour meeting in Riverside, Iowa. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein<\/p>\n Three weeks later, USDA updated its corn prediction with crop-insurance data submitted by farmers. It showed farmers had sown the most corn acres since the Great Depression, even more than previously thought.<\/p>\n USDA forecast American farmers would indeed produce a record crop, <\/b>and raised its 2025 U.S. corn production estimate: 16.814 billion bushels. <\/p>\n Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n Reporting by P.J. Huffstutter. Photographs by Evelyn Hockstein. Additional reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Emily Schmall and Suzanne Goldenberg; Photo editing by Corinne Perkins; Art direction by John Emerson<\/p>\n Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n
\nREUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein <\/p>\n\n