Small-Area Estimation of County-Level Cash Rent Rates

• Activity Number: 187
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 1, 2011 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics
• Author(s): Will Cecere and Emily Berg*+ and Malay Ghosh
• Companies: National Agricultural Statistics Service and National Agricultural Statistics Service and University of Florida
• Keywords: small area estimation ; mixed model, ; mean square error

Abstract

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is responsible for estimating average cash rental rates at the county level on an annual basis. A cash rent is land rented on a per acre basis for cash only. Estimates of cash rental rates are useful to farmers in determining rental agreements, economists in studying research questions, and policy makers in computing payment rates for the Conservation Reserve Program. NASS collects data on cash rents using an annual Cash Rent Survey. Because realized sample sizes at the county level are often too small to support reliable direct estimators, mixed model predictors are investigated. A bivariate model is specified to obtain predictors of 2010 cash rental rates for non-irrigated cropland using data from the 2009 Cash Rent Survey and auxiliary variables from external sources such as the 2007 Census of Agriculture. Bayesian methods are used for inference, and results are presented for Iowa, Kansas, and Texas. Incorporating the 2009 survey data through a bivariate model leads to predictors with smaller mean squared errors than predictors based on a univariate model.