Non-Substantive Change Request for Grape Variety Survey

Non-substantive Change Request

0535-0039 – Grape Variety Survey

This is a non-substantive change request to the Fruits, Nuts and Specialty Crops, OMB docket number 0535-0039.

Under the current Fruits, Nuts and Specialty Crops docket (0535-0039) NASS is approved to conduct the Oregon Vineyard Inquiry, annually. Historically, the Oregon survey has been conducted under a cooperative agreement. Oregon did not receive funding for this survey this year. However, the Texas Wine Marketing Research Institute at Texas Tech University has received funding to conduct a varietal grape survey. Like Oregon, Texas would like to collect data on acres in production, tons of grapes produced and the sales price per ton. The Texas questionnaire will collect less detailed data than the Oregon version, but will be collecting it on a varietal level as it was done in Oregon.

The Oregon survey had an annual sample size of 1,000 with an estimated burden time of 65 minutes per respondent. The Texas sample size will only be 450 growers with an estimated burden time of 15 minutes per respondent. The difference in burden minutes per respondent is due to most grape producers in Texas specializing in the type of grape(s) they produce, where Oregon producers generally had a larger range of grape varieties grown per operation, thus taking them on average 50 minutes longer to complete the survey.

NASS would like to receive OMB approval on this non-substantive change by October 1, 2015 in order to sign the agreement with Texas Tech University and have the survey ready to implement in November of 2015.