Although I’ve only been tangentially associated with the Pro Farmer Crop Tour, I’ve followed the process and often less than enjoyable work of gathering and reporting the results during my entire career with Farm Journal. It’s been around just a couple of years longer than I have been writing.
Over those 30 years, I have noted the reliably repetitive criticism of almost every aspect by farmers, media, and others associated with ag. For example, you can always count on hearing how grabbing a few ears from a tiny number of fields can’t possibly predict the yield of those fields, let alone the national crop. And I’ve heard Chip Flory and others patiently explain that’s not the goal.
By doing the same thing in the same way every year, what the tour is trying to create is comparisons to previous years, and to USDA numbers. Of course, many fault-finders think USDA numbers are useless, or rigged, or divorced from reality.
One of my favorite whines is how the tour is not statistically vigorous. This complaint would be more credible if more than a few famers had any knowledge of the science of surveys and or could explain a normal distribution. Nor does the media help much to educate on this issue. Instead, we run Twitter surveys as factual headlines even though they are totally bogus representations of reality.
In fact, there are only a few efforts to extract information from farms and farmers that truly scientific polling organizations would find useful. The Iowa Farm and Home Survey is a good one. The Purdue Ag Economy Survey is another, although I can’t figure out what those results are good for.
Crop Tour figures have never been presented as anything other than one of many data points to inform your marketing plan. In fact, this is the real test for its loudest detractors. If you think the Tour irrationally affects market actions, why not take some money from dupes who do think Tour numbers are actionable data by making a bet yourself? Commodity brokers would be happy to help.
In my opinion, until you have something to skin in the game, either defensively or aggressively, you’re not really committed to your belief Crop Tour numbers are useless.
