Justification for Non-substantive Change

Non-substantive Change Request

0535-0003 – Prices Paid Surveys – February 2016 - annual survey

In NASS’ continuing effort to improve response rates and the quality of data that NASS collects, several non-substantive changes have been made to the Prices Paid questionnaire for Fertilizers, Liming and Agricultural Chemicals along with the questionnaire for New Tractors and Farm Machinery. These changes come about from several requests NASS received from respondents in early 2015.

The changes include:

• The insertion of Yes – No questions that will help the respondent to skip sections of the questionnaire that do not pertain to their operation.

• Several new pieces of equipment and chemicals were added to the respective questionnaires to reflect new items on the market.

• A column was removed from the chemical tables to make it easier for the respondents to reply.

These non-substantive changes will be reflected in the questionnaires that will be used in the March 2016 survey. There is no change in sample size or respondent burden as a result of these changes.