Issued June 19, 2008 by the Agricultural Statistics Board of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service. For more information contact Scott Hollis at (202) 690-2424 or scott_hollis@nass.usda.gov.

The U. S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will not release a special report on nonfat dry milk prices.

In February 2008, the USDA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued an Inspection Report on “Survey and Estimation Internal Controls for Nonfat Dry Milk and the Dairy Products Price Report.” The report recommended that NASS “request that all reporting firms review their previously submitted data and provide revisions, when appropriate, for the period covering January 4, 2002, through April 22, 2006.” NASS agreed to implement a two-step approach for contacting the firms that previously reported nonfat dry milk data and collecting appropriate revisions. The OIG concurred with this approach. NASS then sent a letter to those firms defining the reporting instructions for nonfat dry milk. The firms were asked to acknowledge whether or not they correctly reported nonfat dry milk data between January 4, 2002 and April 22, 2006. In cases where there had been reporting problems, NASS provided the firms with their previously reported data and asked them to review and submit appropriate corrections.

NASS agreed to summarize results of this process in a special report to be released on June 19, 2008. However, no firms provided corrected data, and therefore NASS will not issue a special report.