A month ago I toured the NASS offices in Washington D.C. and had the opportunity to brief the Under Secretary of Agriculture who is supporting our training farm for veterans and transitioning military. We plan to keep 500 colonies on and around our full spectrum training farm.
My son in law is a statistician for NASS responsible for wheat, corn, and soy beans. There is a team of dedicated ultra-smart folks doing the NASS survey and projection work. Most grew up on farms so they are aware of the environment they effect. My son-in-law grew up on a 2000 acre wheat farm in Western Kansas.  I passed some of the BEE-L dialog to him and asked for his comments. They are.....

"I definitely agree that people should respond to our surveys, but the reasons in the BEE-LOG are a little misleading. Granted, the best way to absolutely make sure we know a farm is in business is to respond to the survey. However, if someone doesn’t respond to our survey, we don’t assume they are out of business. Instead we account for that using nonresponse adjustments. Now granted smaller operations are harder to identify, but we have several list-building techniques in place. We also know that we do not have a complete list, which is why we have a separate area frame to estimate our undercoverage. We are very concerned with making sure we have a comprehensive estimate for the commodities, and we have employed many techniques to not only account for the undercoverage, but to account for nonresponse. 

For some reading, here are a few links:

http://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Methodology_and_Data_Quality/Honey/03_2014/honqm14.pdf
This is our methodology report on the annual bee and honey survey.

http://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Methodology_and_Data_Quality/Advanced_Topics/AREA%20FRAME%20DESIGN.pdf
The reasons of using an area frame in addition to our list frame.

http://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Methodology_and_Data_Quality/Advanced_Topics/Yield%20Forecasting%20Program%20of%20NASS.pdf
Not necessarily applicable to the survey the blog is talking about, but some useful general information about our forecasting protocols.

As a follow-up, I heard a good reason to respond to our surveys. It’s the only way that the industry knows what’s going on with the industry, and by not responding, they are letting other people decide what’s going on with the industry. 

Here’s a brochure the Oregon office put out a few years ago .
http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/Oregon/Publications/why_respond_to%20_surveys_or.pdf
Let me know if you have any questions!"

John Richards
Mathematical Statistician
Summary, Estimation, and Disclosure Methodology Branch
National Agricultural Statistics Service
United States Department of Agriculture 
T: 202-720-3388

Happy New Year!
Gary


 

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