News Release

NEWS RELEASE
United States Department of Agriculture
NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS SERVICE

[STATE NAME] FIELD OFFICE
[ADDRESS]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
[Month ##], [Year]

Contact: [Firstname] [Lastname]
(XXX) XXX-XXXX

USDA TO CONDUCT ANNUAL FLORICULTURE SURVEY
[CITY, STATE] – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS)
may be best known for conducting monthly surveys on livestock and major agricultural commodities,
but once a year they focus their attention on another area – floriculture. NASS’s Commercial
Floriculture Survey is the only comprehensive annual measure of U.S. floriculture production.
“The Floriculture Survey provides [State] growers the opportunity to serve as the frontline
source of data on floriculture production,” said [Firstname Lastname], director of the NASS [State]
Field Office. “This vital information will help identify state and national trends in areas such as new
product development and changing production practices so that growers can make vital business
decisions and evaluate the results of the growing season,” [Lastname] added.
Growers’ participation in this survey 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,” [Lastname] explained.
Between [data collection dates] NASS field offices in 15 states, including [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 information will be compiled and analyzed and
then published in the Floriculture Crops summary to be released on April 23, 2009.
[Lastname] noted that, as is the case with all NASS surveys, information provided by
respondents is confidential by law. “NASS safeguards the privacy of all responses and publishes only
state- and national-level data, ensuring that no individual operation or grower can be identified,”
[he/she] said.
Floriculture crops and all other NASS reports are available online at www.nass.usda.gov. For
more information, call the NASS [State] Field Office at (XXX) XXX-XXXX.

###