This may be the real reason USDA made a huge revision to its beef-export sales data

Take the agency’s recent eye-catching adjustment to U.S. beef-export sales, which were slashed by over 90% from an originally reported weekly figure for late June, citing a reporting error.

“The situation with the beef-export data was absurd,” said Mackenzie Johnston, a fifth-generation cattle rancher in Nebraska and a content director at AgMarket.Net-owned commodity brokerage Standard Grain. She questioned how that initial data even got published, given that it was “obvious” the figures were wrong.

Any USDA report that comes out has the capacity to jolt the market, said Johnston. “If the USDA isn’t putting out accurate information, we’re seeing market swings based on false data, which in turn could negatively impact producers.”

The dust-up over data comes as the cattle industry contends with a growing list of challenges, including from the U.S.-Iran war, which has increased costs for farming staples like fuel and fertilizer.

See: The Iran war is jacking up fertilizer prices and forcing farmers to make tough calls. ‘If I guess wrong, I lose the farm.’

The cattle and beef industry is “facing major drought, rising input costs, increasing regulatory costs and labor shortages,” said Kevin Kester, who previously served as an adviser on the Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee for Trade under the Obama and the first Trump administrations.

Adding in unreliable or inaccurate government data reporting is “like driving one more nail into the proverbial coffin,” he said. “All these factors slow or stop any future beef herd expansion in the country, and limiting the beef supply will not soften up retail prices for the consumer.”

Retail beef prices have hit record highs, with the average price for U.S. ground beef climbing to $6.825 a pound in July, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The USDA’s turnover and reduction in staffing have been negatively affecting its reporting and data collection, said Kester, who is also a rancher from Parkfield, Calif., and a former president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

Farmers and ranchers rely on USDA reports to help navigate challenges in an industry that often hinges on weather and government policy. Now a similar level of unpredictability surrounds crucial USDA reports, as data revisions and delays start eroding trust in government figures. Behind only Brazil, the U.S. is the world’s second-largest beef producer, with a 19% share of global production.

It isn’t clear when the agricultural industry first became wary of USDA data. There was the postponement of several crucial USDA reports because of the 43-day federal government shutdown that ran from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12 last year. Then there were job losses for thousands of USDA employees between January 2025 and January of this year, partly because of the Trump administration’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency initiative. “DOGE” slashed the federal workforce, but not overall government spending as promised, according to a December report from the Cato Institute, a think tank that advocates for limited government.

Relying on a reduced number of USDA employees collecting data and crunching numbers may be why some of the mistakes are being made, said Kester.

Data errors and delays

The USDA on July 2 originally reported that U.S. beef-export sales for delivery in 2026 were at 126,100 metric tons in the week ended June 25. It noted the number was up “noticeably” from the previous week — and at a marketing-year high.

Specifically, it was up more than 500% from the previous week. But in a revised report released July 9, the USDA acknowledged the error and cut the previously reported export-sales figure by more than 90%.

While there certainly have been revisions to USDA reports in the past, Kester said they have not been on this scale before. A USDA spokesperson told MarketWatch the erroneous data had been reported by a lone exporter.

“USDA remains committed to providing the most accurate, transparent, and timely agricultural trade data possible, and the integrity of our systems is, and will remain, a top priority,” the USDA said in a statement to MarketWatch.

The USDA said it recognized the unusually high sales figure and reached out to the exporter to confirm its validity. Once the numbers were determined to be incorrect, USDA worked with the exporter to identify the error, correct the figures and report the correct volumes in the July 9 report.

When asked if staffing cuts contributed to the agency’s ability to release accurate and timely agricultural reports, the USDA said the incident was an “isolated anomaly” and it remains committed to ensuring its reports are “as timely, reliable, and accurate as possible.”

Still, concern over USDA data has been building for some time, and those concerns have been exacerbated in recent months, said Standard Grain’s Johnston.

Even before the big adjustment to the beef-export figure, the delay in the release of the USDA’s crucial quarterly Outlook for U.S. Agricultural Trade report raised a red flag. Ranchers rely on these forecasts to help gauge where the industry might be headed in the short term.

The report was scheduled for release on May 29, and the report online still has that date at the top, but those who track the industry told MarketWatch it wasn’t released until after that weekend, on June 1.

The USDA did not respond to questions from MarketWatch regarding the timing of that report’s release or the reason for the reported delay. A USDA spokesperson was quoted as having told Politico in early June that the report was hung up because of an “internal clearance process” and was not completed in time for the typical deadline. The report from Politico, published June 4, said the report did not include a written analysis portion that would normally be attached.

A similar situation unfolded a year ago. At the time, Rep. Shontel Brown, an Ohio Democrat, asked Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins if the delay was due to the report’s having shown a worsening trade deficit in farm goods. Rollins responded by saying the USDA wanted to make sure it was complete, that the citations were correct and that the review was “done in total,” adding that she, at that time, had only been on the job for 118 days and had 100,000 employees.

Red flags

For those who closely track USDA reports, the arrival of abbreviated reports, reporting delays and the inclusion of inaccurate data have been concerning.

There has been a very clear decline in the quality and availability of USDA data, Mike Castle, senior commodities economist at StoneX, told MarketWatch.

He said he’s been tracking USDA figures for over a decade and thinks the decline in data quality is likely due to a “turnover in USDA’s workforce and ongoing funding cuts.”

“Right now,” he said, “there’s a big disconnect between the USDA and the people this data is intended to help,” and he would like to see that change.

A “fully functioning” USDA is a positive for farmers and the agricultural sector more broadly, said Castle. The alternative is less transparency, he said. That could put farmers and ranchers at a disadvantage.

Castle said that, while he might criticize some of the government agency’s numbers or methodologies, he believes in the importance of the USDA, saying it’s “still the envy of the world in this sector.”