Faith No More: Is Farmer-Controlled Data the Future of US Agriculture?

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June 23, 2026

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by Chris Bennett (AgWeb) ... “Go anywhere in rural Illinois and find me a single farmer that has real faith in USDA or sincere belief in their crop reports. You won’t meet even one,” says Grundy County producer Sam Halterman. “It’d be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“Call it distrust or disgust, but the relationship is broken,” Halterman continues. “We’re tired of the ‘hunky dory’ crowd and the ag organizations mingling on the White House lawn with a golden tractor. They’ve turned our data, the same data that everyone tells us is invaluable, into a market weapon that’s used against us.”

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“The data and crop reports have grown into a monster,” echoes Bailey Buffalo, owner of Buffalo Grain Systems in Jonesboro, Arkansas. “The future is farmers generating their own proof. If enough bins were synced through a producer-controlled network, the market would no longer have to depend solely on USDA estimates. Buyers of corn, rice, and soybeans would have to negotiate against verified regional inventory controlled by the farmers who own the grain.”

Swinging from the hip, Halterman and Buffalo point toward extreme unrest in the present, and seismic change in the near future. “Farmers are worn to the bone by USDA’s actions,” Buffalo adds. “Only one side of the commodity chain benefits tremendously from the current crop data setup—and it sure as hell isn’t farmers.”

The Bleeding Continues
Beaucoup corn. On January 12, 2026, USDA released the 116-page NASS Crop Production 2025 Summary. The report contained unexpected corn yield jumps, setting the fuse on a market drop and a nightmare for farmers holding grain.

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Tucked at the back of the summary, on page 114, in reference to the report’s source, USDA stated: The December Agricultural Survey (DAS) is a probability survey that includes a sample of approximately 73,100 farm operators selected from a list of producers that ensures all operations in the United States have a chance to be selected.

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Yet, how many of the 73,100 farmers actually participated in the survey? Approximately 29,300.
Several days after the release, on Jan. 16, NASS explained that the 2025 Summary was based on a response rate of 40.2%, a drop from the 46% a year before.

“Are you kidding? Only 40% of farmers responded to USDA, but even though USDA knew the market would tank, they issued the report like everything was normal,” Buffalo contends. “That’s called guesswork once you get that low. USDA’s report title should have been, ‘Almost two-thirds of U.S. farmers don’t care to answer our surveys.’”

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After the January USDA report, conspiracies ballooned across social media with claims of intentional government action tied to export profits. “What did they think was going to happen when farmers are already in desperate times?” Bailey exclaims. “Keep on issuing reports with a 40% return and just see how many more conspiracies grow.”

Reality, rather than conspiracy, was harsh enough. Markets responded to the USDA numbers. “Didn’t matter if the survey was accurate; didn’t matter that the vast majority of farmers had ignored the survey,” adds Halterman, 34, a seventh-generation producer in northeast Illinois’ Grundy County. “By basic common sense, anyone can see that markets can be twisted by those sketchy numbers. That’s a failure by our government, and it’s a failure on us if we don’t say anything.”

“And hell yes, farmers are tossing the surveys in the trash,” Halterman notes. “I know because I’m one of them. NASS is scrambling right now trying to blame all this on cuts or the economy or technology. Please. The problem is far, far more deep-rooted. American farmers are losing faith in USDA.”

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Almost three months later, USDA issued a March 31 Prospective Plantings report, manacled to an even lower response rate of 37.6%—the lowest participation tally on record, down from 44.3% the prior year.

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Grabbing hands grab all they can. Everyone, at each link of agriculture’s daisy chain, clamors for farm data: Government, agribusiness, media, ag organizations, machinery manufacturers, non-profits, marketers, and Wall Street all throw elbows at the trough.

Arguably, standing at the periphery while the feast unfolds? The American farmer.

“The demand for our data keeps growing,” Halterman says. “That tells me people are making money with it. Everything we do in the field and every dollar we spend is tracked and tabulated.”

“The government is neck-deep in our data,” he continues. “We already certify acres at FSA. We already submit everything to RMA and our agents for crop insurance. In other words, USDA has data control of every detail of our operations. Why not control it ourselves?”

Spot-on, echoes Buffalo. The hanging question for tomorrow, according to Buffalo, is whether farmers will own the data system or be the raw material feeding it.

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When controversy erupted over USDA’s January data release, Buffalo went to work beyond bin design and construction: He built GrainIQ, an online application that generates commodity market intelligence for farmers.

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“We need producer-controlled aggregation with clear consent, clear ownership boundaries, and operational anonymity.”

The future, in his eyes, is a farmer-controlled grain inventory network across the U.S. “This has to happen. The technology is already here to watch grain totals in real time as the information comes right off farms.”

“As regional groups, farmers could then verify every USDA claim. Sync every bin up and let connected farmers be the keepers of their own bushels. Or at least let producers report to USDA without handing over the whole farm.”

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Data carries the same value as a crop—or soon will.

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“Think about the machinery, seed, and chemical companies with our planting data, our harvesting data, and our buying data. Is that going to USDA without our permission? Tell me with a straight face that you’d be totally surprised if a report comes out this year or next year, about farm data leaking to or from government,” Halterman posits. “Nobody would be shocked by such a report and we all know it.”

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“If USDA ever hopes to change, then bring in farmers with no direct ties to any ag organization or business. USDA needs a revolving group of 20- to 40-year-old growers to steadily meet with. In a single day, USDA will gain more info that way than they get long-term from big agriculture.” READ MORE

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Excerpt from Farm Progress/Farm Futures: Weather is the obvious culprit for volatility in the grain market around Independence Day — if conditions threaten corn pollination or the outlook for soybean success. Still, in some years impacts from heat and drought are a dud, but prices rocket higher anyway.

The cause for unexpected price swings: Overlooked updates to acreage and grain stocks reports USDA publishes at the end of June. (For 2026, that’s tomorrow.) Changes in these reports may seem relatively minor or too deep in the weeds to matter. But impacts can be significant, especially when traders are caught leaning the wrong way.

Just two years ago the government reported June 1 corn and soybean inventories were up 22% from the previous year, sending cash corn prices down 40 cents over the next week, while soybeans tumbled $1.13. But in 2014 soybean stocks were down 7% as farmers sold aggressively. Cash soybeans jumped $1.52 over the following week, enough to pull corn higher too, with strong corn demand offsetting larger stocks.

Corn stocks surprise

The most recent World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates released June 12 forecast corn stocks at the end of August 2026 would be around 38% higher than the previous marketing year. My models suggest a much smaller increase, which could set up futures for a rebound.

Connections between price moves for corn and soybeans, as well as reactions the day and week after these reports, aren’t perfect by any means. But they are strong enough to be statistically significant — that is, not the result of mere chance. And changes tend to be in the same direction. So, if corn is higher a week after the report, so are soybeans, and vice versa.

One question reports could answer this year is how fast growers can pivot, shifting fields at the last minute to capture a better advantage. A “peace dividend” from the Middle East war with Iran should ramp up the uncertainty. Will fuel and fertilizer expenses fall fast enough to make a difference? How much could demand improve if Iran uses unfrozen funds to purchase U.S. originations?

Soybeans lose less

Soybeans seem to own the upper hand currently, though both crops could lose money when all costs are included. USDA data appears to give the oilseed an advantage over corn by around $45 an acre, likely enough to swing a few acres away from feed grains. But any forecast is hardly fixed in stone. Both corn and soybeans were planted so far this year in a timely fashion, which could limit flex acres anyway. READ MORE