This data is reported by USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). USDA's Export Sales Reporting Program monitors U.S. agricultural export sales on a daily and weekly basis. Export sales reporting provides a constant stream of up-to-date market information for 40 U.S. agricultural commodities sold abroad. A single statistic reveals the significance of the program: in a typical year, the program monitors more than 40 percent of total U.S. agricultural exports. The program also serves as an early alert on the possible impact foreign sales have on U.S. supplies and prices. The weekly U.S. Export Sales report is the most current available source of U.S. export sales data. The data is used to analyze the overall level of export demand, determine where markets exist, and assess the relative position of U.S. commodities in foreign markets.
The date field in export sales is weekly, based on the calendar year. However, the dataset also keeps track of marketing year export sales. Be cautious when aggregating the export sales data over the date variable to properly account for these factors.
The turn of the marketing year often falls on a different day of the week then the weekly calendar year reporting. In this case, FAS adds an additional row (two total) to the dataset for that calendar week. One row represents that week's values which fell in the previous marketing year, while the other row captures that week's values which fell in the new marketing year. The "Marketing Year Start or End" variable labels these rows as "ENDING MY" and "STARTING MY", respectively, and is otherwise empty.
This creates a double counting issue when aggregating some of the variables by calendar week. See our view,
https://agtransport.usda.gov/d/885i-uek7, for an example of avoiding double counting to show total outstanding sales over time.
