Working for Peanuts: Acquiring, Analyzing, and Visualizing Publicly Available Data

Data visualization has become important to farm management and commodity marketing during recent price and weather phenomena. Accessing and evaluating United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) data via software tools empowers rural property professionals to mitigate risk. Data acquisition and visualization examples include days suitable for fieldwork (DSFW) during peanut planting and harvest in 11 peanut producing states. The overall objective was to share techniques to access and analyze publicly available data. Specific objectives were to demonstrate software tools to define most active dates for field activities, estimate DSFW during most active dates for each state, and assess DSFW time trends. Analytic results are important for machinery selection and acreage allocation. Software tools have been made available for readers to use in their own applied research.