December Hogs and Pigs - News Release

NEWS RELEASE

United States Department of Agriculture

NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS SERVICE

[FIELD OFFICE NAME] FIELD OFFICE

[ADDRESS]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	Contact: [Firstname] [Lastname]
[Month ##], 2013	(XXX) XXX-XXXX

USDA TO SURVEY HOG AND PIG PRODUCERS NATIONWIDE

[CITY, STATE] (Date)– In December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will contact nearly 10,000 pork producers and contractors nationwide for the quarterly Hogs and Pigs survey. The agency will survey pork producers for detailed information on market hog and breeding stock inventories as well as farrowing intentions.

Producers should receive the survey questionnaire in late December and can respond via the Internet, mail or fax. Producers who don’t respond in one of those ways will have the opportunity for a telephone or personal interview.

“Through the quarterly Hogs and Pigs surveys, NASS measures and reports conditions and trends in the U.S. pork industry over the course of the year,” said [YOUR STATE] State Statistician [FIRSTNAME LASTNAME]. “By responding to this survey, producers make sure that NASS can provide timely, accurate and objective data that all sectors of the U.S. pork industry, including producers themselves, depend on to help make sound business decisions.”

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 producer or operation can be identified.

Survey results are published in NASS’s quarterly Hogs and Pigs report, to be released December 27. These and all NASS reports are available online at www.nass.usda.gov. For more information, call the NASS [STATE] Field Office at [Toll-free Number].

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