Relevant, Fast & Free

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Fruit and Vegetable Market News, part of the Agricultural Marketing Service, has been a fixture and important tool in the production, transportation, and marketing of agricultural commodities across the country and around the world.

Poised to celebrate its 100th anniversary, Market News covers more markets and commodities than ever before, providing easy access to a wealth of information.

How It All Began
Market News was initially created at the request of industry leaders who saw a need for timely, reliable, and unbiased information. Access to such information would help producers and handlers operate more efficiently and keep all market participants better informed about market conditions and alternative or competitive markets.

Further, with much of the product being sold at destination markets by selling agents or commission merchants, it was important for shippers to know they were treated fairly. Thus, Market News helped producers and marketers answer three critical questions: Was it the right product? Did I select the best market? Was I treated fairly?

Today, Market News has a nationwide network of highly trained and experienced state and federal market reporters. They track and report on hundreds of international and domestic markets on a daily basis. Buyers and sellers across the country—and in much of the world—rely upon USDA’s Market News to provide a consistently high level of market transparency. This is even more important in an industry with increasingly thin markets, or those with increasingly fewer buyers or sellers.

Market reports and information are used for more than assessing supply, demand, and price. They also establish value used in contracts, dispute resolution, insurance, and disaster payments. Reports and information released by Market News are also widely used as prima facie evidence in court cases where the market value of fresh produce is in question.

Get It, Get It Right, Get It Out
Billions of dollars of agricultural products are traded annually using Market News reports and prices as a basis. This includes many high-value imported products where producer returns are directly impacted by the reported f.o.b. (free-on-board) price.

Given the importance of “getting it right,” market reporters and industry contacts must work together closely to ensure the reports are an accurate reflection of the market at that moment in time. With this in mind, Market News strives to keep its reporters informed and engaged by meeting regularly with industry groups—both in the United States and in other countries—to facilitate communication and foster cooperation.

In October 2013, the lapse in funding for many federal programs caused Market News to be shut down for approximately 16 days. With the help and support of industry contacts, when Market News resumed operations, the agency was able to capture missing movement data (shipments, crossings, imports) and complete this critical dataset, though a gap in pricing remains for the missing days.