COLUMBUS, Ohio—The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) long-term agricultural baseline projections give farmers, agribusinesses, and policymakers a 10-year look into the future of farming and global trade. Researchers at The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) recently looked at the informativeness and accuracy of these projections, which many rely on when making business and government policy decisions.
The Farm Income Enhancement Program studied more than two decades of baseline projections and actual realized values of major agricultural indicators to determine the accuracy of the projections. Examples of indicators included commodity prices, yields, farm income, acres harvested, etc.
Their studies focused...
