Exploring Quarterly Agricultural Survey Questionnaire Version Reduction Scenarios

Morgan Earp, Scott Cox, Jody McDaniel and Chadd Crouse

No 234372, NASS Research Reports from United States Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service

Abstract: The United States Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) conducts the Agricultural Survey Program (ASP), which consists of crop/stocks and livestock surveys. The Quarterly Agricultural Survey (QAS) questionnaire serves as a primary data collection instrument for the Agency’s estimates of seasonal and annual crop production, supplies, and grain storage, which are used by the farming industry for both short and long term planning. The QAS is administered in all 50 states and collects data on 31 different crops and stocks, in varying combinations and frequencies throughout the year depending on the state. Such variation allegedly reduces respondent burden; however, it greatly increases the complexity of the survey administration process. Hierarchical clustering was done to investigate the potential of creating 20 regional QAS versions. Such an approach, if implemented operationally, would reduce the number of QAS versions by 60 percent (50 to 20). The research explored further clustering the QAS into only five regional versions, which, if implemented, would reduce the number of QAS versions by 90 percent (50 to 5).

Keywords: Research; Methods/Statistical; Methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41
Date: 2009-05
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/234372/files/e ... 0print%20version.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:unasrr:234372

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.234372

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NASS Research Reports from United States Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().