Nursery Production Survey and Nursery and Floriculture Chemical Use Survey

Contact: [FIRSTNAME] [LASTNAME]

(XXX) XXX-XXXX

BLOOMING FLORICULTURE INDUSTRY FOCUS OF USDA SURVEY

[CITY, STATE], [MONTH XX,] 2007 – The commercial floriculture industry is one of the blooming sectors of U.S. agriculture. In 2005, growers in the United States sold more than $5 billion in floriculture products, an increase of nearly 36 percent from 1998. Vital information about the floriculture industry is gathered annually during the Commercial Floriculture Survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).

Between [DATES OR MONTHS OF DATA COLLECTION] NASS field offices in 15 states, including [YOUR STATE], will contact all commercial floriculture operations that produce and sell at least $10,000 of floriculture products. Growers will be asked to provide information on production, sales of floriculture commodities and the number of agricultural workers on their operation.

“The Commercial Floriculture Survey provides [STATE] growers the opportunity to serve as the frontline source of data on floriculture production,” said [FIRST NAME LAST NAME], director of the NASS [YOUR STATE] Field Office. “This data will help identify state and national trends in areas such as new product development and changing production practices so that growers – like you, can plan the future of their business.”

Producer participation in this survey is crucial and helps ensure that NASS will be able to provide timely, accurate and unbiased information on floriculture production. “The data supplied by growers will serve as the foundation for measuring the economic contribution of the industry to U.S. agriculture and the country,” [LAST NAME] explained.

Survey responses will be compiled in NASS’s Floriculture Crops Summary to be released in July 2007. As with all NASS surveys, information provided by respondents is confidential by law. NASS safeguards the confidentiality of all responses and publishes only state- and national-level data, ensuring that no individual producer or operation can be identified. All NASS reports are available online at: www.nass.usda.gov.

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