Nonresponse in Phase III of the Agricultural Resource Management Survey in Louisiana

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) surveys farmers and ranchers in the fifty states and Puerto Rico in order to estimate crops and livestock, assess production practices, and identify economic trends. One of NASS’ annual surveys is the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS). ARMS collects data on chemical use and production practices with a specific focus on the financial well-being of agricultural operations. ARMS is composed of three phases with Phase III being the only phase with response rates typically lower than 80 percent. This low response rate causes a higher risk of biased results. To improve Phase III response rates, NASS’ Louisiana Field Office and NASS’ Research and Development Division, conducted two studies. The first study assessed the effect of providing USDA’s Economic Research Service’s economic brief, “Economic Well-Being of Farm Households” to a random sample of operations. The second study assessed reasons for questionnaires being coded as refusals or inaccessibles