Farmers have answers the USDA wants
Posted on Sunday, December 16, 2007
Arkansas’ farmers and ranchers soon will have to provide information for an updated picture of the state’s agricultural sector.
The Census of Agriculture, conducted once every five years, is a complete count of the nation’s farms and ranches and the people who operate them. Questionnaires for the 2007 Census of Agriculture will be mailed Dec. 28 to more than 50, 000 Arkansans by the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
The forms will give the state’s farmers and ranchers a chance to be heard, said Becky Cross, director of the statistical service’s Arkansas field office.
“It’s your voice, your future and your responsibility,” Cross said, referring to how the census gives farmers a chance to influence key decisions that will shape the direction of U. S. agriculture and rural development. Responding is required under federal law.
For census purposes, a farm or a ranch is any place from which $ 1, 000 or more of agricultural products was produced and sold — or normally would have been sold — during 2007, Cross said. So even Arkansas peach farmers who lost their entire crops to the Easter-weekend freeze should respond to the questionnaire, she said.
Any farmer or rancher who doesn’t receive a form should request one by calling (888 ) 424-7828, Cross said.
Accurate agricultural data are extremely important for public policy, Arkansas Agriculture Secretary Richard Bell said. The state used information from the 2002 Census of Agriculture to design last year’s livestock assistance program, he said.
“We used the census data to determine the numbers of cattle and the acres of pasture in each county, which was critical to what we were doing to put the program together,” Bell said.
Cross said most Arkansas farmers and ranchers will receive the same questionnaire — a 24-page booklet divided into 35 sections. The questions cover land use and ownership, operator characteristics, production practices, income, and expenses.
Farmers must respond only to the sections that apply to them, Cross said.
“Section 11, for example, is fruits and nuts. If you don’t grow fruits or nuts, then you pretty much can answer the very first question, say ‘no,’ and skip on to the next section,” she said.
Completed forms are due by Feb. 4. For the first time ever, farmers can respond online via a secure Web site: www. agcen sus. nass. usda. gov, Cross said. Census results will be available online beginning in February 2009, she said.
Producers who elect to complete paper questionnaires must send them to Jeffersonville, Ind., said Jason Lamprecht, deputy director of the Arkansas field office. Agriculture Department personnel in Jeffersonville will key the information into a database, he said.
Statisticians then will review the data for accuracy and consistency, Lamprecht said. The Arkansas field office will check the completeness of its census mailing list by determining if the operators of farms selected from sample aerial photographs received questionnaires.
The Agriculture Department hopes to reach most Arkansas farmers through the original mailing, Cross said. Follow-ups will be conducted by mail, by phone and, in some cases, by personal visits. Federal law safeguards the privacy of all responses.
“We have always supported [the National Agricultural Statistics Service ] and their ability to maintain that confidentiality,” said Don Alexander, executive vice president of the Agricultural Council of Arkansas. Accurate information is important for council members, made up of row-crop farmers, cotton gins and warehouses, agricultural processors, county farmers cooperatives, and more than a dozen banks in the Arkansas Delta, Alexander said.
As the only source of uniform and unbiased agricultural data for every county in the state, the census provides useful information, said Tubby Smith, executive vice president of the Arkansas Cattlemen’s Association. “We use it as an educational tool” to better understand who raises cattle in Arkansas and how, and to educate public officials about issues related to cattle, Smith said. “People, by nature, don’t necessarily want to tell the government anything,” but the Cattlemen’s Association encourages its members to respond to the census questionnaire, he said.
NOT JUST A SAMPLE George Washington conducted the nation’s first agricultural survey in 1791, compiling data he collected from farmers in four states and the District of Columbia. An agricultural census was compiled every 10 years from 1840 through 1920, Cross said. “Since 1925, the census has been taken every five years, so this coming census will be the 27 th Census of Agriculture,” she said. In Arkansas several key types of livestock and poultry and a handful of major row crops also are tracked annually, but those reports include estimates developed by using samples, Lamprecht said. The census is a complete count of all farmers and all of the products they produce. Everything from mushrooms to rabbits is covered.
The census enables the Agriculture Department to adjust the focus of its annual reporting, Lamprecht said. For example, the statistics service no longer tracks Arkansas apple production yearly, but it may begin following sweet potatoes annually.
The census also is the only time when demographic information about farmers and ranchers is collected.
Census questionnaires tend to ask the same questions from one census to the next, so trends can be monitored over time. New questions, however, are introduced to learn about new trends, Cross said. Section 22 of this year’s questionnaire, for example, is devoted to organic agriculture, and Section 32 asks about such practices as Internet access and energy generation.
The Arkansas field office of the statistics service has 18 fulltime employees based in Little Rock, Cross said. Also, 60 field enumerators and about 100 phone-center enumerators work in Arkansas for the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, she said.
“We’re increasing the size of our telephone unit here [in Little Rock ], which is called the Arkansas Data Collection Center,” Cross said. “We’re becoming a regional call center for the census as well as other surveys.” When the call-center expansion is complete in early 2008, it will employ 120 to 140 enumerators, Cross said, and become the largest of seven such regional call centers operated nationwide by the Agriculture Department’s statistical service.
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