Calibration for the Census of Agriculture

• Activity Number: 137
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 10, 2015 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Survey Research Methods Section
• Author(s): Andrea C. Lamas* and Kelly Toppin and Matthew Williams and Linda J. Young and Clifford Spiegelman
• Companies: USDA/NASS and USDA/NASS and Department of Health and Human Services and USDA/NASS and Texas A&M University
• Keywords: Capture-recapture ; Calibration ; Non-response ; Under-coverage

Abstract

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) conducts a Census of Agriculture every 5 years, in years ending in 2 and 7. For the 2012 Census of Agriculture, NASS used capture-recapture methods to adjust the Census for under-coverage, non-response, and misclassification of farms/non-farms. After these adjustments, the weights were calibrated and integerized. Calibration was conducted to ensure that state and national totals were unbiased for variables where administrative data were available. The integerization process rounded weights but did not change marginal totals. NASS researched alternative calibration methods applied to the Census. Here the constraints and limitations of those methods are discussed.