A Note to Users of USDA Long-term Projections

USDA’s long-term agricultural projections presented in this report are a Departmental 
consensus on a longrun scenario for the agricultural sector.  These projections provide a 
starting point for discussion of alternative outcomes for the sector. 

The scenario presented in this report is not a USDA forecast about the future.  Instead, it 
is a conditional, longrun scenario about what would be expected to happen under a 
continuation of current farm legislation and specific assumptions about external 
conditions.  

The report uses as a starting point the short-term projections from the November 2006 
World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report.  Critical long-term assumptions 
are made for U.S. and international macroeconomic conditions, U.S. and foreign 
agricultural and trade policies, and growth rates of agricultural productivity in the United 
States and abroad.  Normal weather is assumed.  Also, the report assumes no further 
outbreaks of animal or plant diseases.  Changes in assumptions for any of these items can 
significantly affect the projections, and actual conditions that emerge will alter the 
outcomes.

Historically, projections in prior years’ releases of this report have been the same as those 
used in preparing the President’s Budget baseline.  However, the President’s Budget 
baseline this year assumes that biofuel blending tax credits and the ethanol import tariff 
are not extended beyond their currently legislated expiration dates.  The projections in 
this report assume those tax credits and tariff are extended.  

The projections analysis was conducted by interagency committees in USDA and reflects 
a composite of model results and judgment-based analyses.  The Economic Research 
Service has the lead role in preparing the Departmental report.  The projections and the 
report were reviewed and cleared by the Interagency Agricultural Projections Committee, 
chaired by the World Agricultural Outlook Board.  USDA participants in the projections 
analysis and review include the World Agricultural Outlook Board, the Economic 
Research Service, the Farm Service Agency, the Foreign Agricultural Service, the 
Agricultural Marketing Service, the Office of the Chief Economist, the Office of Budget 
and Program Analysis, the Risk Management Agency, the Natural Resources 
Conservation Service, and the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension 
Service.  

February 2007