Monitoring the impacts of weather and climate extremes on global agricultural production

The World Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB), under the direction of the Department of Agriculture's Office of the Chief Economist, employs a staff of agricultural meteorologists whose mission is to monitor and assess the impacts of weather and climate on crops in key growing areas throughout the world. The results of those analyses contribute to the deliberations conducted by the Interagency Commodity Estimates Committees (ICEC) led by analysts at the World Agricultural Outlook Board. The results of those deliberations can be found in the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report, one of the designated Principle Federal Economic Indicators issued monthly by the Federal Government (White House (Office of Management and Budget), 2015). The process used to develop those estimates each month requires the integration of an assessment of the current climatic conditions with knowledge of the agricultural practices and market conditions of a particular country. Weather and climate data are used in conjunction with information on when and where crops are planted, production practices including irrigation, which varieties are best suited for that particular climate, and what naturally occurring hazards can be expected in any given year. Being able to closely compare current conditions to historic observations of weather and realized output on a fine scale, temporally and geographically, is a key component of the international estimates in the WASDE process.