United States Department of Agriculture

WASHINGTON, August 3, 2012—The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today released public comments submitted in response to a June 8, 2012, Federal Register Notice announcing an opportunity to comment on the public release time of several major USDA statistical reports.

Due to recent changes in market hours by major commodity exchanges, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and World Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB)—the USDA entities responsible for the reports—are reviewing times and procedures of the following statistical releases: World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, Acreage, Cattle, Cattle on Feed, Crop Production, Grain Stocks, Prospective Plantings, Quarterly Hogs and Pigs, and Small Grain Summary.
Stakeholders submitted 147 comments through the NASS online response site and via letter and e-mail. The comments received may be viewed on the NASS website at http://bit.ly/FedRegComments.

USDA will consider all comments in reaching a final decision on the time to release key statistical reports. Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Statistical Policy Directives 3 and 4, rules are in place to regulate the public's access to federally generated statistics. The 2012 official published schedule for all NASS reports is available online at www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/index.php. The World Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB) report schedule is available at www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde. Current USDA schedules and release times of 8:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. ET remain in effect until further notice.