December Agricultural Survey - Cover Letter

[Date]

Dear Mr./Ms. [Lastname]:

Enclosed please find the 2013 December Agricultural Survey. This survey collects the year-end data used to determine USDA’s official estimates for 2013 production and harvested acres of major crops and on-farm grain and oilseed supplies in the United States. Information from this survey is also used to calculate county yields.

I hope you will help make this important survey as accurate as possible by responding in either of these ways:

• Online at www.agcounts.usda.gov. This method is fast, easy and secure. See the instructions on the back of this letter. You will need your unique 17-digit response code from the survey mailing label to begin.

• By mail or fax. Complete the survey questionnaire and return it in the envelope provided or fax it to (XXX) XXX-XXXX.

If you do not respond by [Date of Non-response calling], we will contact you to arrange a telephone or personal interview.

As required by Federal law, your responses are completely confidential. We safeguard the privacy of all respondents, ensuring that no individual operation or producer can be identified. We will publish aggregate results in January 2014 in the annual Crop Production report and the quarterly Grain Stocks report available at www.nass.usda.gov.

Thank you for participating and for your support of agricultural statistics and [State] agriculture. If you have questions or concerns, please contact [Firstname Lastname] at (800) XXX-XXXX.

Sincerely,

[Director’s/State Statistician’s Name]

[Director/State Statistician]

Enclosures