Office of the Chief Economist

What this funds

In 2025, the Immediate Office coordinated across USDA to synthesize economic and policy analysis ' Provided rapid response economic insights and analysis of various changes in agricultural markets and economic conditions, as well as policy proposals and regulatory actions to inform Administration officials about impacts on the agricultural and rural sectors - putting U.S. farmers and ranchers first. This enabled USDA to quickly provide support and greater regulatory certainty to the agricultural and rural sectors. This included analysis of the impact of ongoing trade negotiations; effects of animal disease outbreaks such as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza and livestock pests such as New World Screwworm; the market-driven supply of fats and oils for the production of biofuels to inform EPA decision making related to the Renewable Fuel Standard; and supply chain impacts of other market disruptors. ' Contributed economic analysis and expertise in the development of several USDA rulemakings. With OCE's ORACBA, reviewed USDA rules and other agencies' rules that impact agriculture and rural America to ensure they are based on objective, appropriate, ' Developed stochastic estimates of prices and production in support of the USDA interagency 10-year baseline economic projections, which are used by policymakers to develop long-term budget outlay projections and facilitate policy analysis. ' Led research and fostered high-priority research conducted by others, increasing the knowledge base to inform the design and ensure impactful outcomes of future policy decisions (ongoing). This includes analysis on Farm Bill proposals, emerging biofuel markets; developing capabilities to model trade policy and impacts of retaliatory tariffs; relationships between crop insurance, farm loans, and financial stress; impacts of state-level animal welfare measures such as California's Proposition 12; and impacts of state-level locomotive regulations ' Ensured American agricultural interests and needs were appropriately represented in international discussions. Represented the U.S. government in agricultural committee meetings of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the OECD Agricultural Ministerial meetings and provided the U.S. perspective and direction on policy discussions and research papers concerning agriculture, trade, and the environment. ' Represented USDA in numerous interagency settings on multilateral and bilateral trade issues, including World Trade Organization and bilateral trade negotiations and dispute settlement in the WTO or under bilateral trade agreements, providing economic analysis and guidance for several recent agricultural cases. Recent examples include the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) Canada Dairy disputes, the USMCA Mexico biotech corn dispute, and the ' Provided policy information and analysis in the U.S. Government responses to countervailing duty (CVD) investigations of U.S. agricultural products (e.g., Colombia's current CVD investigation of U.S. milk powder) and studies of the impacts of other trade actions taken against U.S. exports, such as retaliatory tariffs and non-tariff measures. ' Contributed to timely and accurate reporting of U.S. domestic support for agriculture to the World Trade Organization, which is required to demonstrate U.S. compliance with WTO commitments. OCE developed and briefed Congress on the annual U.S. domestic support notification to the WTO and also provided analysis of new programs to the Foreign Agricultural Service and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. OCE also supports the biannual U.S. subsidies notification to the WTO Subsidies, Countervailing Measures Committee, and other U.S. Government engagements in the WTO and its Committees (e.g., Trade Policy Reviews). ' As Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC), the Chief Economist presided over quarterly public board meetings during 2025. The FCIC meets four times a year and on an ad-hoc basis, as needed. In 2025, the FCIC Board of Directors approved several products to improve risk management safety nets for farmers. ' Provided economic analysis and proposals that enhance crop insurance as a risk mitigation tool for America's farmers, in a manner that respects taxpayer support to advance an efficient and effective safety net for agricultural producers and the country's food supply. This is accomplished through close coordination and cooperation with RMA and cooperative research. ' Ensured USDA interests were represented in Department of Labor rules impacting the H-2A program. Provided analyses of legislative and regulatory actions that would affect agricultural ' Conducted and spurred research to increase our readiness to provide analytical expertise for policy support for Congress and others, including Farm Bill debates and ex-post analysis of ' OCE regularly offers technical assistance to Congress on a variety of topics. It also provided regular technical assistance to the Council of Economic Advisers, the National Economic Council, and the National Security Agency on economic events of concern. OCE identified and developed new agricultural/rural sector models and data sources to support analytical needs ' Actively monitored domestic and global agricultural commodity markets to provide the Secretary with timely economic analysis related to U.S. agricultural market disruptions and to flag emerging signs of market stress, using data-driven methods. ' The World Agricultural Outlook Board provided key market intelligence, data and weather monitoring to support producers and agricultural commodity markets: ' Published the monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand (WASDE) report, providing USDA's official world and U.S. supply and utilization estimates and forecasts for grains, oilseeds, and cotton, and official estimates and forecasts for U.S. sugar, red meat, poultry, eggs, and milk. The WASDE report is downloaded between 1.5 million and 2 million times yearly. After each WASDE release, the accompanying Secretary Briefing presentations are posted on the OCE website for public use, ensuring all interested parties have access to the information. ' Serving as USDA's focal point for market intelligence, WAOB cleared all USDA/Economic Research Service Commodity Outlook reports for public release on schedule following the ' Represented the United States on FAO's Agricultural Market Information System information group, including information sharing and monthly participation in commodity outlook sessions intended to support food market transparency and encourage coordination of policy action in ' Managed the development of the USDA interagency 10-year baseline economic projections and cleared the estimates for publication and release. The projections are a departmental consensus on a long-run representative scenario for the agricultural sector for the next decade and identify major forces and uncertainties affecting future agricultural markets; agricultural

Extracted from Office of the Chief Economist, p. 7. Verbatim; nothing here is paraphrased.

Contracts funded by this line

4 linked contracts. These are obligations — lifetime awarded money — and they are not comparable to the request above and are never added to it. No total is shown: an award linked to several lines is counted in full on each, so the sum would not be a fact.

Confidence mix · 4 medium

Linked contracts are a floor, not a census. Coverage is bounded by how distinctively a program is named and, for performer links, to RDT&E and Procurement — O&M and military construction publish no performers. Budget figures are FY2027 request dollars; contract figures are obligations. The two measure different things and must never be summed together.

Ask this budget line

Answers come from the figures on this page and nothing else. These dollars are parsed from Agriculture (USDA)'s Congressional Justification and are approximate — confirm anything that matters against the cited page.