Bad Reports

Among the Government's many services to farmers and commodity traders are periodic crop reports by the Agriculture Department. But the reports have often been so inaccurate as to be more of a hindrance than a help. Last week a study of wheat-crop estimates over a 28-year period showed just how wrong the Government has been.

Said John D. Baker Jr., a crop expert with Longstreet Abbott & Co., a St. Louis commodity research house: early estimates of winter wheat crops have erred by an average of 100 million bu., or 12.3%.

Even by August, when most of the crop is in, the average miss has been 25 million bu., or 3.4%. Early forecasts of spring wheat, a smaller crop, have been even further off--an average of 50 million bu., or 21%. Said Baker: the estimates are nearly always on the low side.

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