The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) 100th-annual Ag Outlook Forum was held last week. The forum, which initially began in 1923, was a way for the U.S. government to facilitate economic forecast data directly to farmers. Since its inception, the forum has grown into a unique meeting place of ag industry members around the world to discuss current and future trends in agriculture and ag economics. This year, forum sessions over two days covered topics from global exports to developments in animal biotech. Roughly 1,600 people from around the world convene for the annual meeting.

While it is useful to get such a broad look at the coming crop year for corn and soybeans, one needs to understand the biases in these numbers and why they may be skewed a certain way.

We’ll start by looking at yields. The USDA uses trendline ...