The U.S. Agriculture Department will shut off its gusher of statistical reports in the event of a federal government shutdown, leaving traders and food producers in the dark about most activities in the world's largest farm exporter.
But inspections of meat are considered among essential services that will continue even if most workers are idled.
If the shutdown lasts more than two or three days, USDA may be forced to delay the release of its monthly crop estimates, due on Oct. 11, which often cause swings worth billions of dollars in the price of corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton.
"We are going to miss the October crop report, if they shut down too long," said Dan Basse, president of AgResource Co. "If you don't have the October crop report, that's really the big one."
USDA also reports large export sales - 100,000 tons or more of corn, soybeans or wheat to a single destination in one day - that often move markets. On Sept. 18 the agency reported 1.93 million tons of soybeans to China, the fifth-largest daily sale ever.
Also suspended would be dozens of lesser-known reports that provide a daily or weekly foundation for tracking crops, livestock and the farm sector - from cattle auctions in Amarillo, Texas, to dry edible bean prices in Wyoming.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has also gone dark. USDA-APHIS is following its shutdown plan, which does not identify what functions, if any, will continue to operate.
The department's public face, the usda.gov Website, will "go dark" and be linked to an informational page in the event of a shutdown, allowing no access to USDA data banks, a spokeswoman said on Monday.
"Timely updates to the Website will stop, thus valuable electronic reports and material will not be available to agricultural community and the agriculture and consumer publics," said an outline of USDA's plans.
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