Census of Agriculture

Census of Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

The most ambitious and important agricultural survey of all is about to get underway in northwest and the rest of the fifty states. Northwest farmers and ranchers will be getting something important in the mail over the next couple of weeks.

MERTZ:  Well, every five years, the US Department of Agriculture tries to contact every farmer in the United State of America. We will mail them a questionnaire for the Census of Agriculture.

Chris Mertz is state director for the Oregon Field Office of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. He says information collected by the census is heavily relied upon and much anticipated.

MERTZ:  For government programs, we have federal, state, and local decision makers using the information to serve the local farmers and to develop programs to assist them in times of need. Farmers use the information to promote their industry and to defend themselves too when they talk to other industry groups or their legislators.

The survey asks questions about crops, land use, ownership, farm demographics, expenses, and other useful information. Farmers and ranchers are required by law to complete the census, which is due in February 2013. It will take until early 2014 to finalize the data and issue the reports. Farm operators will be able to mail in their hard copy responses or can do it online. Mertz says the census is focused on gaining uniform, comprehensive agriculture data for farmers and ranchers in all 50 states.

MERTZ: The basic types of questions are going to be land use, land ownership questions, operator characteristics, and different production practices.

Mertz talks about when you should expect to see your forms.

MERTZ: Farmers should be expecting in their mailboxes, the first part of January, questionnaires will be arriving. They will be shipped out at the tail end of December right after Christmas. They should be arriving soon. Then the deadline is February 4th for when we will ask everybody to get it back to us.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.