Oct 15 -- The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) invites public comments to OMB by October 15, 2021 regarding additional data collection to augment the 2020 Local Food Marketing Practices Survey.
NASS is seeking approval for a substantive change request to the 2020 Local Foods Marketing Practices Survey. NASS seeks approval to collect additional information of agricultural products marketed as local foods during 2020. In early 2021, NASS collected detailed data on 2020 local food marketing practices. This information came from farmers and ranchers who had previously reported local food marketing activity on prior surveys and census. Upon reviewing the data, a change in the local food marketing patterns was observed which now requires contacting additional producers to get the complete picture of local food marketing practices. As a result, NASS intends to collect additional information from those not previously indicating prior local food marketings. The November 18, 2021 Local Foods release will be delayed until this information along with data collected earlier this year are combined. This information is expected to be released in the first half of 2022.
The target population for the Local Food Marketing Practices Survey is any farm that sells its products through one of the four marketing channels: 1) Consumers, 2) Retail Markets, 3) Institutions, and 4) Intermediate Markets. This substantive change request is to add an additional 30,000 farms to the already-approved sample of approximately 37,000. The additional samples will be drawn from NASS’s list frame and will consist of agricultural operations with unknown presence of local foods activity.
In 2020, the original Local Foods Marketing Practices Survey (LFMPS) Sampling Frame was comprised of operations in all states on NASS’s List Frame that reported direct market sales in the 2017 Census of Agriculture (CoA) or had a NASS List Frame direct market sales indicator. For this substantive change request, the LFMPS Sampling Frame was updated to also include operations in all states on NASS’s List Frame without a direct market sales indicator, i.e., operations with unknown direct market sales.
The data will be summarized and published at the US level, 7 regional levels, and 30 states. This is the same breakdown of the data for the 2015 survey.
NASS Local Food Marketing Practices:
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Surveys/Guide_to_NASS_Surveys/Local_Food/
NASS request to OMB:
https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=202110-0535-001 Click IC List for survey forms, View Supporting Statement for technical documentation.
FR notice inviting public comment to OMB:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/10/15/2021-22504/submission-for-omb-review-comment-request
Point of contact: Jeff Bailey, Branch Chief, Summary, Estimation, and Disclosure Methodology Branch, Methodology Division, NASS (202)720-4008
For AEA members wishing to submit comments to OMB, "A Primer on How to Respond to Calls for Comment on Federal Data Collections" is available at
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5806