Contact

Reaching the right resource matters — especially when the question is time-sensitive, the stakes involve a planting decision or a policy deadline, or the answer simply isn't obvious from a search result. This page explains how to submit questions or feedback, what kind of response to expect, and the geographic and topical scope this office covers.

Response expectations

Not every inquiry gets the same turnaround, and being clear about that upfront is more useful than vague reassurance. The general framework works like this:

1. Editorial and factual corrections — Questions about specific data, sourcing, or factual accuracy on a published page are treated as high priority. Expect a substantive reply within 3 business days. If the correction is confirmed, the page is updated and the inquiry submitter is notified.

2. Topic or coverage requests — Suggestions for new subjects, gaps in existing coverage, or requests to expand a page receive acknowledgment within 5 business days. Not all requests result in new content, but all are logged and reviewed against the editorial calendar.

3. Research partnership and data inquiries — Requests involving data collaboration, academic citation, or institutional use of published material are reviewed on a case-by-case basis. These typically involve a longer exchange and a response guidance of 7 to 10 business days.

4. General feedback — Observations about site structure, readability, or topic framing are welcomed. These are read and categorized, though individual replies are not guaranteed.

One important distinction: this office does not provide personalized agronomic advice, legal guidance on USDA programs, or regulatory interpretation. For USDA-specific program questions, the USDA Programs and Resources page lists the relevant agency contacts and program offices directly.

Additional contact options

For questions that align with a specific published topic, the most efficient path is to identify the relevant page first — for example, US Farm Policy and the Farm Bill or Climate Change and Crop Yields — and reference it directly in the message. This allows routing to the right editorial contributor rather than a generalist queue.

Corrections to statistics or sourcing carry more weight when they include the original source being challenged and the alternative source being proposed. A message that says "the export figure on page X appears to conflict with USDA ERS data from [specific report]" moves significantly faster than one that says "something seems off."

For journalists or researchers seeking to cite content published on this site, attribution guidance follows standard conventions for reference web properties: cite the specific page title, the domain, and the retrieval date. No special permission is required for non-commercial citation.

How to reach this office

The primary contact method is the submission form available on this page. Fields include subject category (correction, topic request, partnership, general), a message field with a 1,000-character minimum for substantive inquiries, and an optional field for source documentation or links.

Email contact is available for inquiries that involve attachments — datasets, documents, or longer research notes that don't fit a web form. The address associated with editorial correspondence is listed in the site footer, which the publishing template populates.

There is no phone line. This is a deliberate choice, not an oversight. The subject matter — spanning global grain markets, water use and irrigation, smallholder farming systems, and agricultural labor across dozens of countries — requires written, documented exchanges rather than real-time conversation that can't be referenced or verified later.

Service area covered

The editorial scope of this site is national in anchor — grounded in US agricultural systems, USDA frameworks, and American farm policy — but global in context. The Key Dimensions and Scopes of Global Agriculture page defines this boundary in detail.

Practically, this means:

• US-specific topics (crop production, farm structure, domestic policy, regional growing zones) are covered in depth, with primary sourcing from USDA, NASS, ERS, and referenced agricultural research.
• Global topics (food security, international trade agreements, world grain markets) are covered at the systemic level, drawing on FAO, World Bank, and IFPRI data where applicable.
• Country-specific regulatory or agronomic guidance for nations outside the United States is outside the editorial scope. The Global Agricultural Organizations page points to international bodies that handle those inquiries.

Inquiries that fall outside this scope aren't dismissed — they're redirected. If a question belongs somewhere else, the response will say so and name where.