Dear Department of Agriculture: I Hate You

On Thursday, I wrote a post about how much of this year's U.S. corn crop will be consumed by ethanol (answer: 31%, according to the IMF's World Economic Outlook).

An article on the front page of the weekend Financial Times states:

The US Department of Agriculture revealed on Friday that the US biofuel industry would consume one third of the country’s corn crop in the 2008-09 season – or 4bn bushels – up from about 22 per cent a year earlier – or 3bn bushels.

I spent 2 incredibly frustrating hours late Wednesday night trying to find a good estimate of how much ethanol will consume this year's U.S. corn crop -- including about 45 minutes on the Department of Agriculture's website -- and the Department of Agriculture reveals its estimate 2 days later? Wow. Not funny. At all.

On Wednesday, I had to go to footnote 16 in Appendix 1.2 of the IMF's 2008 World Economic Outlook to find the answer. On Saturday, the answer is on the front page of the FT. I really hate the Department of Agriculture.