The Accuracy and Informativeness of Agricultural Baselines

May 04, 2021

By Siddhartha Bora

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI), University of Missouri are two main sources of baseline projections for US agricultural sector. Published in the beginning of each year, the baselines provide insight about factors influencing the agricultural sector for the next decade. The projections present a conditional scenario based on certain assumptions about macro-economy, weather, and trade, and serve a basis for comparison of alternative policies. In a new study, we evaluate the accuracy and informativeness of USDA and FAPRI baselines since 1997. We find that the predictive content of most variables in the projections diminish after 4-5 years from the current year, and the USDA and FAPRI models do not outperform one another when entire projection path is considered.

The report is available at: https://aede.osu.edu/sites/aede/files/publication_files/AgBaselines2021.pdf

Source : osu.edu

Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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