The Acreage/Crop Reporting
Streamlining Initiative (ACRSI) is an initiative to improve and
streamline the existing information collection activities currently
approved by OMB by eliminating or minimizing the duplication of
information collected. The improvements and streamlining will
reduce the overall burden on the public, USDA employees, and
Approved Insurance Providers (AIPs) by eliminating the need for
farmers and ranchers to report the same information multiple times
and eliminate the need for USDA employees, AIPs and insurance
agents to input the same data multiple times, thus reducing USDA
administrative and operating costs.
The indicated 501,012 total
estimated respondents reflect actual CIMS data for the 2017 crop
year. There is an increase of respondents by 208,012, due to the
continued expansion of ACRSI to more crops and nationwide use. The
travel time was removed from the burden hours for the respondents
going to the county offices to do regular and customary business
with RMA and FSA for any FSA or CCC programs; this means no travel
time is required specifically for the information collection and
therefore, it is no longer included in the burden hour reporting;
this reduced the burden hours by 29,300 hours. The total burden
hour reduction of 171,045 hours also reflects the change to only
include the additional times for customers (15 minutes) to provide
RMA specific information after having provided the shared
information to FSA county offices.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.