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The environment drives a great deal of what happens in crop production across the US

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The environment drives a great deal of what happens in crop production across the US. This exercise is designed to give you an opportunity to explore several crop production information sources that may be of use to you as you think about crop production.

1. Find the US field crops planted and harvested.
   • Go to http://www.nass.usda.gov/Data_and_Statistics/ (Links to an external site.) and select:
   • From the left-hand menu: Crops and Plants
   • In the center selection windows:
     • Sector - Crops
     • Group - Field Crops
     • Commodity – Your choice
   • Check boxes for data items – [Your Crop] acres planted and [Your Crop] acres harvested
   • On the reported data, find a year with a large difference in acres planted and harvested. What is the difference?

2. Find the locations where the crop is planted
   • Go to http://www.nass.usda.gov/Data_and_Statistics/ (Links to an external site.) and select
   • From the left-hand menu: Charts and Maps
   • Under the Crops and Plants header:
     • County Maps
     • Same crop you chose above (you may have to look at multiple maps, for example there are 3 types of wheat)
   • Download PDF of Harvested acreage by County for your crop.
   • While this map is for 2016, assume that the same areas were planted in the year you are interested in.
3. Find the environmental conditions in the year you identified
   • Go to http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/drought/weekly-palmers/ (Links to an external site.)
   • Look up Palmer Drought Index maps for April through October of the year that you are interested in. What are the conditions?
4. Looking at your harvested acreage map(s) from #2 and your drought maps, what is one plausible explanation for the reduction in crop acreage harvested? If the crop was planted but not harvested, what happened to it? How does that affect the producers?

Bonus: Look at the Palmer Drought Index map in effect right now. Do you predict any problems for crop production in the US this year?

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