Questionnaire Content Relationships across ARMS III

Questionnaire Content Relationships across ARMS Phase III

Questionnaire Versions

ARMS Phase III questionnaire versions consist of a long-form Cost and Returns Report version (CRR), a shorter-form mailed Core version, and Cost of Production commodity-specific versions. The ARMS Phase III commodity-specific Cost of Production (COP) versions are developed from the Core version and augmented to address commodity issues. For Livestock commodities, the COP version includes a complete set of practices, costs, and returns since livestock commodities are not included in Phase II.

For Agriculture industries with prevalent use of production contracts, a contractor expense survey may be conducted in some States to obtain average expenditure by local contractors for contractor covered expenses.

Extensions of the Core ARMS Phase III questions included in the Cost of Production versions are targeted at:

- Estimating post-harvest costs and associating farm overhead costs with individual farm enterprises

- Estimating and analyzing the net returns to farm enterprises

- Identifying costs, prices, and practices associated with commodity

- Examining irrigation practices and expenses

- Commodity detail for government payments

In general, the goal of the various sections of the ARMS Phase III questionnaires is:

• Sections A-C - Define the Farm Unit (acres, crop & livestock)

• Sections D-F - Support the Farm Profitability Statement
  - Income
  - Expenses

• Sections G-H - Support the Farm Balance Sheet
  - Assets
  - Debt

• Sections I-J - Farm Operator, Management, Household
  - Identify ownership interest
  - Measure interchangeability of assets, debt

• Section L - Irrigation (optional for crop commodities)

- Acreage, yield, irrigation system, water use

- Water allocation

		Versions
Section	Name	CRR	Core	Crop-COP	Livestock-COP
A	Land in Farm/Ranch	x	x	x	x
B	Acreage and Production	x	x	x	x
C	Livestock	x	x	x	x
D-CRR	Commodity Marketing and Income	x
D-Core	Income from Farm Production		x	x	x
E	Other Farm Related Income	x	x	x	x
F	Operating and Capital Expenditures	x	x	x	x
G	Farm Assets		x	x	x
H	Farm Debt	x	x	x	x
I	Farm Management and Use of Time	x	x	x	x
J	Farm Household	x	x	x	x
K	Conclusion	x	x	x	x
L	Irrigation			x (optional)
M	Marketing of Crop Commodity			x
N-Y	Marketing and Practices of Livestock Commodity				x