RFO New Release Template

	NEWS RELEASE
	NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS SERVICE
	United States Department of Agriculture • Washington, DC 20250
	Ag Statistics Hotline: (800) 727-9540 • www.nass.usda.gov

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	Contact:	[Contact Name] (XXX)-XXXX
		First.Lastname@usda.gov

USDA’s Cost of Pollination Survey mails to [STATE] crop producers this fall

CITY, STATE -- Month Day, 2023 – On Oct. 27, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will mail the Cost of Pollination Inquiry – November 2023 to [Number of Recipients] [State] crop producers. The survey will be sent to nearly 16,000 producers nationwide. The survey results will help producers and beekeepers monitor and react to changes in production costs. Pollination expenditures are a necessary part of agriculture and are directly tied to the health of the honey bee industry.

“Honey bees are important pollinators of multiple crops ranging from flowers to nuts to vegetables,” said (First Name Last Name), [director of the NASS (Region) Field Office]/[NASS [State] Statistician. “To help accurately depict the health of the pollination industry in the United States, NASS will ask crop producers about their use of honey bees, the fees they paid for honey bee pollination, and any other expenses related to pollinating their crops.”

Survey recipients are asked to respond securely online at agcounts.usda.gov, by mail, or fax. Those who do not respond by Nov. 14 may be contacted by a NASS representative to arrange an interview to complete the survey.

All information reported by producers will be used for statistical purposes only and kept confidential, as required by federal law. NASS will publish the survey data Dec. 15, 2023, in the Cost of Pollination report and searchable database, Quick Stats, at www.nass.usda.gov.

For more information about the Cost of Pollination Survey and NASS’s bee and honey program, visit nass.usda.gov/go/bees/. NASS’s other honey bee reports include the Honey report published every March and the Honey Bee Colonies report published every August.

For assistance with the survey, producers are encouraged to call the NASS (State) field office at (Phone Number).

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NASS is the federal statistical agency responsible for producing official data about U.S. agriculture and is committed to providing timely, accurate, and useful statistics in service to U.S. agriculture.

USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.