USDA Dramatically Lowers Beef Export Sales Data, Sparking Data Quality Concerns

The US Department of Agriculture dramatically lowered its reported beef export sales for late June on Thursday, sparking fresh concerns about the quality of the agency’s data after staffing losses as part of the Trump administration’s reshaping of the federal government.

USDA said exporters in late June sold a net 12,064 tonnes of US beef to foreign buyers, 90 per cent lower than the volume it originally reported a week ago.

Traders had largely dismissed USDA’s initial report as inaccurate. Trust in USDA reports has suffered among traders, analysts and farmers following deep staff losses and after the agency significantly underestimated corn acres last year.

It also delayed a quarterly agricultural trade report and excluded findings that pointed to tariffs as a reason for a forecast increase in the agricultural trade deficit, which analysts said raised questions about its objectivity.

USDA said it received incorrect beef export sales data and published it in a weekly report on July 2. The data showed that 2026 sales reached a high of 126,062 tonnes in the week that ended on June 25, up nearly 500 per cent from a week earlier.

Traders and analysts had quickly cast doubt on the unusually large increase because it included sales to some countries that were several times larger than those countries had ever bought from the US.