Supplemental Supporting Statement Part A for ARMS III

SUPPLEMENTAL SUPPORTING STATEMENT Part A

ARMS III

Substantive Change

OMB No. 0535-0218

This substantive change is being submitted as a supplemental supporting statement to the Agricultural Resource Management Surveys. This document identifies changes made to the Phase III questionnaires conducted in 2019 and 2020 referencing production years 2018 and 2019 respectively.

A. JUSTIFICATION

1. Circumstances making collection of information necessary.

NASS is requesting a substantive change to the ARMS and Chemical Use Survey docket (0535-0218) to accommodate changes to several of the ARMS III questionnaires.

NASS conducts the ARMS III program as a part of a cooperative agreement with the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS). The Costs and Returns (Phase III) surveys collect both whole farm data and commodity specific data. The majority of the questions that are asked are a part of the ARMS core program and rarely have any changes made to them. The cooperative agreement allows ERS to ask additional research questions each year to address changes in the farming industry. The OMB approval process is for a three year period, so NASS projects ahead with the surveys and commodities that will be targeted for the next three years. Each year NASS will provide proposed changes to the questionnaires to OMB for approval. Attached to this submission are listings of the changes made to the 2018 and 2019 questionnaires.

2. How, by whom, and for what purpose information is to be used.

There are no changes to the long list of potential people who will be using the data collected by the ARMS III surveys. The additional research questions will enhance research into additional topics that are impacting US farms and ranches.

3. Use of improved information technology.

The ARMS III surveys are done primarily by field enumeration. However, there are internet versions of the questionnaires that allows farmers and ranchers to respond on line.

4. Efforts to identify duplication.

There are no changes from the original approval related to duplication reduction.

5. Methods to minimize burden of small businesses.

NASS incorporated additional screening questions and skip patterns to help minimize additional burden as much as possible.

5. Consequence if information collection were less frequent.

There are no changes to the frequency of these surveys than was originally approved.

5. Special circumstances.

No special circumstances are associated with this information collection.

5. Federal register notice and consultation with outside persons.

Not applicable.

5. Payments or gifts to respondents.

No payments or gifts will be given to respondents.

5. Confidentiality provided to respondents.

Confidentiality will be provided to respondents in accordance with the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA) of 2002. All confidentially protections that are applied to all products released from these surveys will remain the same as originally approved.

5. Questions of a sensitive nature.

No questions of sensitive nature will be asked.

12. Hour burden and annualized costs to respondents.

There are no changes to the burden hours, responses or costs to the public from what was approved in the original docket.

Original Burden Tables

13. Total annual cost burden to respondents.

No start-up or ongoing operation/maintenance costs are associated with this information collection.

13. Annualized costs to federal government.

There are no changes to the total annual cost or $18 million for the Agricultural Resource Management Surveys and the Chemical Use programs.

13. Reasons for changes in burden.

There are no changes in respondent burden.

13. Tabulation, analysis, and publication plans.

The revised questions will be incorporated into the existing publications that will be issued by either NASS or ERS.

Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) Index page

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/arms-farm-financial-and-crop-production-practices/uses-and-publications/#uses

Agricultural Resource Management Survey, Phase III (current and historical)

Farm Production Expenditures

http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do?documentID=1066

In the NASS Quick Stats program, data users can have access to published data from current surveys. Quick Stats provides an overview of the data for most of the major surveys conducted by NASS. In this website users will also have access to predefined queries which will allow them to bring up various data relationships quickly for the commodities of interest.

https://www.nass.usda.gov/Data_and_Statistics/Pre-Defined_Queries/index.php

13. Request for approval of non-display of expiration date.

No request is being made for approval of non-display of the expiration date.

18. Exceptions to certification statement.

No exceptions to the certification statement are requested.

September 2019

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