Reply Letter to Calif Dept of Food and Agr

United States Department of Agriculture
National Agricultural Statistics Service

August 27, 2018

Jeff Cesca, Director
Division of Marketing Services
California Department of Food and Agriculture
Dear Mr. Cesca,
Thank you for your letter of support and suggestions regarding the reinstatement of the
Commercial Floriculture Survey. The NASS has been working to improve the quality
and relevance of the data collected from the major floriculture producing States while
minimizing respondent burden where possible.
The most significant program change that will be made to the upcoming survey will
involve the States that are included in the survey. The 17 States that will be included in
the program in this renewal request are: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut,
Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina,
Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. New to this program are the
States of Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Dropped from the
federally funded program are Hawaii, Maryland, and South Carolina. However, NASS
has been contacted by the States of Arizona, Hawaii and Maryland about doing a
reimbursable survey through a cooperative agreement with each State. These three
State surveys will be included in the OMB approval request.
Based on the 2014 Census of Horticulture, there have been several changes to the
plant materials that are included in the survey.
As to your suggestion of including previously reported data for the respondents to view
when submitting current data; NASS has been investigating this approach for surveys.
However, the main concern for implementing the use of previously reported data has
centered on introducing bias to reported data. NASS will continue to look into this as a
possible option for the future.
Your comment regarding the collection of detailed data from operations with less than
$100,000 in sales is a valid point. Following each Census of Horticulture, NASS looks at
the data reported by respondents with sales of more than $10,000 and less than
$100,000 to see if we need to make any program changes to account for these
operations.

USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

In regard to your final suggestion about using administrative data from County
Agricultural Commissioner reports and the California Department of Food and
Agriculture, NASS uses administrative data whenever possible to validate survey data.
Occasionally the administrative data may have a different reference period or sampling
variance that will allow for some differences in the published data.
We will keep you informed of any future modifications.
Again, many thanks!

Sincerely,
Digitally signed by
JOSEPH PARSONS
Date: 2018.08.27
15:09:19 -04'00'

Joseph L. Parsons
Chairperson, Agricultural Statistics Board
U.S. Department of Agriculture
National Agricultural Statistics Service

2