251 – Area-Based Samples
Enhancing the June Agricultural Survey Pre-Screening Through the Use of County Assessor's Information
Denise A. Abreu
National Agricultural Statistics Service, USDA
Matt Deaton
National Agricultural Statistics Service, USDA
Wendy Barboza
National Agricultural Statistics Service, USDA
The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) conducts the annual June Agricultural Survey (JAS), which is based on an area frame. Segments of land comprise the sampling units for the JAS. Finding and interviewing all farm operators can be challenging and costly, especially in previously unenumerated segments. In highly-cultivated land areas, names and addresses obtained from the Farm Service Agency often provides good starting information to identify operators within the selected land area. However, in areas with small-scale agriculture, screening to identify farm operators is often time-consuming, expensive, and subject to misclassification. In 2012 and 2014, geo-referenced county assessor parcels were intersected with the sampled JAS segments to reduce prescreening costs, raise efficiency in data collection, and reduce misclassification of farms. Controlled experiments were conducted to evaluate the usefulness of the county assessor's data in the identification of more agricultural tracts. This paper presents the results of these controlled experiments.