It’s Census of Agriculture Time

Chris Beytes

The 2017 Census of Ag questionnaire went out in late November and you’ve got until February 5 to fill it out (it’s mandatory). You can mail in your responses, or use USDA’s improved online questionnaire, which has been extensively revised to be more user-friendly.

For instance, you can use it on any electronic device, and you can save the info partway through and revise it as your schedule allows. New time-saving features of the online questionnaire include automatically calculating totals, skipping sections that don’t pertain to your operation and providing drop-down menus of frequent responses.

Says Census and Survey Division Director Barbara Rater, “Responding online saves time and protects data quality. That’s our mission at NASS—to provide timely, accurate and useful statistics in service to U.S. agriculture. Better data mean informed decisions, and that’s why it is so important that every producer respond and be represented.”

For more information about the 2017 Census of Agriculture, visit www.agcensus.usda.gov. GT