Reliability and Adequacy of Farm-Price Data

Excerpts from the report: An adequate knowledge of relative changes in farm-price data, especially as they compare with the trends of other prices, wages, land values, etc., is fundamental as a basis for an intelligent constructive program for agriculture, whether of Federal or State agencies or of organizations of farmers. Prices and price changes are both causes and effects in the field of economic phenomena. In the long run the prices of farm products tend to control the supply. Changes in farm organization and types of farming can frequently be traced to absolute and relative changes in farm prices. For many problems of this kind it is desirable to have a price series which represents price changes in the local farm market and at the same time is a composite for a definite geographical unit, such as a State, as well as a composite for the entire crop, including all grades and classes. This bulletin is designed to meet the needs of those students and research workers in the field of agricultural economics who may have occasion to work with the farm-price data which are collected and published by the Department of Agriculture. It is intended primarily for those students who are familiar with technical, statistical terms. The data published by the United States Department of Agriculture are too often taken for granted by the research worker, largely because the reliability and adequacy of the data have never been fully analyzed. Many students would like to know what is back of farm-price data—how and when collected, and their most obvious limitations before trying to use them in some important economic problem.