Nursery Production Survey and Nursery and Floriculture Chemical Use Survey

Contact: [FIRSTNAME] [LASTNAME]

(XXX) XXX-XXXX

USDA GATHERS VITAL NURSERY AND CHRISTMAS TREE DATA

[CITY, STATE], [MONTH XX,] 2007 – Nursery and Christmas tree growers in the United States reported more than $3.9 billion in sales for 2003, an increase of almost 20 percent from 2000. Vital information about the nursery and Christmas tree industry is only gathered every three years during the Nursery and Christmas Tree Production 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 17 states, including [YOUR STATE], will contact all nursery and Christmas tree growers with sales of $10,000 or more. Growers will be asked to provide information on production, sales and inventory of nursery products and Christmas trees, as well as the number of agricultural workers in their business.

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

“Producer participation in this survey is crucial and helps ensure that NASS can provide timely, accurate and unbiased information on nursery and Christmas tree 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 Nursery Crops Summary to be released in September 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.

###