Supplemental Supporting Statement Part A for JARP 2

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

June Area Research Project (JARP) Phase 2 – Pilot Study

OMB No. 0535-0140

This substantive change is being submitted as a supplemental supporting statement to the List Sampling Frame Survey.

A. JUSTIFICATION

1. Circumstances making collection of information necessary.

Data collection costs for the June Area Survey (JAS) are around $7 million per year, which is about four percent of NASS’s overall budget. The JAS is an area-frame-based survey conducted via in-person interviews. NASS is exploring ways to lower the JAS costs by leveraging new statistical methods and technologies. 

The June Area Research Project (JARP) pilot study is designed to assess the viability of replacing or reducing the NASS area frame with a web-scraped list frame for the JAS and conducting the survey via telephone, web and mail, thereby reducing or possibly eliminating the expensive in-person enumeration.

The Phase 1 of the pilot study was recently approved under this same OMB number (0535-0140). This supplemental supporting statement is being submitted to add the Phase 2 survey to this approval. The supplemental Supporting Statement Part B that is also attached to this submission addresses the sampling and methodology being tested in this pilot study.

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

The information gathered through this testing will be used internally to assess the viability of the proposed approach of replacing or supplementing the JAS. The results will be compared to those collected in the 2019 JAS to gain insight into possible under-coverage, response, and measurement properties of moving to an operation-based questionnaire administered via web, mail and phone with a minimal amount of in-person interviewing

3. Use of improved information technology.

This test will explore the possibility of providing JAS respondents the ability to respond via the web using our computer assisted self-interview (CASI). Currently, JAS respondents can only respond via personal interview. In addition, NASS will be using a computer-assisted telephone instrument (CATI) to conduct telephone interviews of non-respondents to the mail and CASI instruments. The use of the CATI and CASI instruments will help insure consistency in the administration of telephone and internet interviews. In addition, NASS has the capability of recording the phone interviews with the respondent’s permission. The CATI instrument allows for both monitoring and evaluation of the telephone administration.

4. Efforts to identify duplication.

This study will only focus on collecting information exclusively collected on the JAS. The screening survey (Phase 1) can be used to replace the JAS coverage adjustments, and the ability to collect JAS field-level data (JAS Section D) is not being evaluated in this study. Thus, much of the JAS content will not be asked of the “treatment” group (Phase 2). In addition, the current JAS will serve as the control group so the only additional burden for this test will be incurred by the “treatment” group. Standardized statistical methods will be used to ensure that operations are not in both the JAS and the “treatment” group.

5. Methods to minimize burden of small businesses.

The majority of the data collection will be web, mail and telephone. Telephone will only be used in nonresponse follow-up. This will allow small farms to respond when it is convenient for their operation, during the initial data collection period. Trained telephone interviewers should be able to move quickly through the form, keeping the burden to a minimum. In addition, the number of call attempts will be limited to reduce burden on all operations. It should be noted that adequate representation of small farms is needed to obtain high quality estimates, specifically number of farms.

5. Consequence if information collection were less frequent.

This is a one-time test of concept. Results may be used for future testing and possible implementation of replacing or supplementing the current JAS. Not collecting this information would reduce NASS’s ability assess this pilot study and determine if it could potentially replace all or part of the JAS with a potentially less burdensome and more cost-efficient data collection strategy.

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 stemming from this research will be subject to the disclosure act.

5. Questions of a sensitive nature.

No questions of sensitive nature will be asked.

12. Hour burden and annualized costs to respondents.

The following table contains the estimated burden hours for the surveys included in this supplemental supporting statement. Cost to the public for completing the questionnaire is assumed to be comparable to the hourly rate of those requesting the data. The adjusted overall cost to the public is estimated at $5,018,424.06.

NASS uses the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment Statistics (most recently published on March 30, 2018 for the previous May) to estimate an hourly wage for the burden cost. The May 2017 mean wage for bookkeepers was $19.76. The mean wage for farm managers was $38.62. The mean wage for farm supervisors was $24.11. The mean wage of the three is $27.50. To calculate the fully loaded wage rate (includes allowances for Social Security, insurance, etc.) NASS will be adding an additional 33% for a total of $36.66 per hour.

Calculation of burden hours for this 2 phase test are shown in the table below. For this pilot test, it was estimated that NASS would need approximately 2,500 completed questionnaires who qualified as farm operators to conduct our analysis. Using an initial sample size of approximately 16,500 should provide the desired number of good reports while keeping data collection costs to a minimum.

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.

For this study, response by the web will be encouraged, and the questionnaire will be mailed once. Phone follow-up of non-respondents will be conducted with a maximum of five calls. Burden time for the questionnaire is 20 minutes. The questionnaire is 12 pages long. This data collection will be conducted during fiscal year 2019 at a cost of approximately $155,600, which includes fringe benefits.

13. Reasons for changes in burden.

This is a one-time pilot test and has no previous burden.

13. Tabulation, analysis, and publication plans.

Official estimates will not be provided for this test. Data are for internal evaluation of the viability of this approach. Analysis of this test will be provided to the public through research evaluations.

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.

April 2019