Change Request, Hog Survey

Change Request, Hog Survey, Generic Testing - OMB No. 0535-0248

NASS is submitting this non-substantive change request to the Generic Testing Docket (0535-0248) for the quarterly Hog Survey (0535-0213). NASS plans to contact 600 farmers in August to test the proposed new wording of the Death/Loss questions on the current questionnaire. We will be using two versions of the questionnaire Version 1 is the original quarterly questionnaire that is currently being used in March, June, September and December. Version 2 contains the revised Death/Loss questions. We will attempt to contact 300 hog farmers with each questionnaire version. In the test we will be contacting hog farmers in the 16 States (CO, IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE, NC, OH, OK, PA, SD, TX, and UT) that are currently in our quarterly hog surveys.

Testing will be conducted exclusively by telephone with the use of a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI). Operators who are in the current quarterly sample will be excluded from the test population, in order to keep respondent burden to a minimum on them. Prior to the data collection, a form letter will be sent out to the sampled operations telling them that they have been selected to participate in this test. The test will involve approximately 90 total hours of respondent burden.

Calling will be conducted by our National Operations Center in St. Louis, MO. Calling will be conducted at various times of the day for the first week in August. NASS hopes to achieve a minimum of 60% good responses. The test sample is targeting more towards the middle to large size hog operations. This will allow us to concentrate on the commercial hog operations rather than including the smaller hobby or home farms that raise a few hogs for home consumption.

The two questionnaires that will be tested along with the pre-survey letter have been loaded into the ROCIS submission system.