The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service began this month the final
study gathering information about farm economics and productions practices from farmers and ranchers
across Ohio.
The agency is expected to spend several months on the third and final phase of the 2016 Agricultural
Resource Management Survey.
The statistics service conducts the management survey jointly with USDA’S Economic Research Service. The
survey targets select commodities on a rotational basis.
This year the survey places additional focus on corn and conventional and organic dairy sectors.
In an effort to obtain the most accurate data, the federal agencies will reach out to nearly 37,000
producers nationwide including 800 in Ohio between January and April.
The survey asks producers to provide in-depth data on their operating expenditures production costs and
household characteristics.
In addition to accurate data, the statistics service is strongly committed to confidentiality.
The agency will only publish data in an aggregate form.
This helps safeguard the confidentiality of all responses, ensuring no individual respondent or operation
can be identified.
The economic data gathered in the management survey will be published in the annual “Farm Production
Expenditure” report on Aug. 3.
All National Agricultural Statistics Service reports are available online at www.nass.usda.gov.
The USDA’S Economic Research Service also plans to release a series of reports based on Agricultural
Resource Management Survey data.
All of these reports will be available on the agency’s site at www.ers.usda.gov.