By Stephen Smoot
The information age just got updated, at least in terms of what is available to farmers in Pendleton County and across the nation.
The United States Department of Agriculture recently announced the availability of the dashboard for the first time in all 50 states. The program started in Iowa as a pilot project in January 2023. Last October, it added West Virginia and 38 other states.
According to the USDA, it launched the dashboard because “as you run your farm operation, you may need different types of data and information that are scattered across numerous online sources.” Some of those sources were scattered across the vast USDA website while others came from different organizations and agencies entirely.
“Some data may be tough to find or difficult to analyze,” the release stated, “especially for beginning farmers and ranchers that are starting a farm business or are new to USDA.”
The dashboard provides state and county specific information, including news from the Farm Service Agency and Natural Resources Conservation Service. Recent releases on the dashboard include notices about conservation partnerships and a hay insurance deadline.
Cattle farmers have access to the latest information on pricing from the Joplin Regional and Oklahoma National stockyards. The front page features basic pricing. At the time of writing, the Joplin Regional Stockyard offered a price of $284.52 and the Oklahoma National Stockyards showed $284.43.
Each stockyard price also allows anyone to look at pricing details, including the latest auction reports, feeder cattle prices over the past month or so, and more.
The dashboard also contains forecasts from the National Weather Service, as well as temperature and precipitation data over the past decade. This includes averages for each month.
Information on past storm events, also available on the dashboard, can, according to the USDA, “be used as a reference when applying for crop insurance from the Risk Management Agency (RMA) or USDA disaster assistance programs.”
A number of farming resources, such as drought data, state level contact information, and other helpful tools, are available as well. The dashboard can be accessed at farmers.gov.
The USDA also indicated that it welcomes feedback from users about any aspect of the dashboard, whether it be positive or constructive criticism.
