Sunday, May 11, 2014

Numbers you didn't see...

From the recently released 2012 Census of Agriculture.
The response rate for the 2012 Census of Agriculture CML is 80.1 percent as compared with a response rate of 85.2 percent for the 2007 Census of Agriculture and 88.0 for the 2002 Census of Agriculture. [More] 
These numbers are buried in the Methodology section and surrounded by scary math so I don't think many ag reporters bothered to dig them out. 

As near as I can tell (the math scared me a little bit too) the response rate for was pretty even across farm sizes. 

Still, we're down to 1 in 5 taking of us a pass. Maybe in 20 years NASS will wonder why, so I can tell them: Too slow, too irrelevant (c'mon - $1000 = farm??)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always assumed they would throw me in jail if I didn't reply. They would get better cost numbers if they waited till after taxes were due to take the census. Mostly, I just make stuff up. I believe they encourage guessing.

Martin F Hengst said...

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