Appendix F NASS Comments and FNS Responses

APPENDIX F

NASS Comments and Fns response

Farm to School Census and Comprehensive Review Part A and B

February 25, 2022

General Comment:

The paper addresses and explains the purpose, expectation, process, cost and statistical methods used for the study of SFA procurement practices. Revisions are also made to the questionnaire to make the questions easier to understand, which may increase the response rate. However, there are a few places that need clarification.

Supporting Statement Part A

1. No comment.

“To accommodate the 2023 Census, we are requesting an addition of 18,861 total burden hours and 272,007 responses. This represents 6,200 fewer burden hours and 44,042 more responses more than the initially approved request.”

Wording in the quote is confusing. If you are requesting an addition, it wouldn’t make sense it represents something fewer. Input from form 83-I shows in total of 18,861 burden hours was requested and there will be in total of 272,007 responses. I would suggest clarifying the statements above.

FNS Response: To improve clarity, we have removed the comparison to the initial request.

“These procedures are designed to minimize the burden on respondents. Based on the 2019 Census, FNS estimates that 99% of survey responses (approximately 13,127 responses) will be collected electronically. The remaining 1% will be collected by telephone. Out of an estimated 272,007 responses for this collection overall, this represents an estimated 4.8% that will be collected electronically.”

This paragraph doesn’t make much sense to me. First, I don’t understand using number of responses instead of respondents for talking about electronic collection rate. Second, the way 4.8% was calculated isn’t very clear. It might be more applicable to apply the rate (99%) to the total number of responses (272,007). Last, in A12, it mentioned there will be 13,316 responsive of respondents, that’s a number close to 13,127, I was wondering if that’s also respondents.

FNS Response: This section was revised for clarity by removing the final sentence.

4. No comment.

5. No comment.

6. No comment.

7. No comment.

8. No comment.

9. No comment.

10. No comment.

11. No comment.

“With this submission, there are 19,056 respondents (13,316 responsive and 5,740 non-responsive), 272,007 responses (100,707 responsive and 171,300 non-responsive), and approximately 18,681 burden hours (15,070 responsive and 3,611 non-responsive).”

If there will be 13,316 responsive of potential respondents, which is 70%, how come there are only 100,707 responsive of potential responses, which is only 37%. Please clarify.

FNS Response: The number of responsive respondents reflects SFA directors who ultimately fill out the Census survey and state agency directors who complete the request for contact information. Each of these respondents may be non-responsive to individual outreach attempts (e.g., reminder emails), thus the response rate per response will be lower than the response rate per respondent.

13. No comment.

14. No comment.

15. No comment.

Supporting Statement Part B

No comment.

Reviewer:

Mingshan Zheng, Mathematical Statistician

Summary, Estimation, and Disclosure Methodology Branch

National Agricultural Statistics Service

United States Department of Agriculture

T: (202) 720 0830

Email: [email protected]