Farm Programs

USDA's Wheat Poll--The Results Are Not Reliable Gao ID: RCED-88-6 October 23, 1987

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service's (ASCS) design and implementation of its 1986 wheat poll to measure producers' reactions to the wheat production control program.

GAO found that: (1) ASCS complied with the Food Security Act requirement to conduct the poll by July 1, 1986; (2) although ASCS mailed ballots to all wheat producers, it included a question asking whether they were in the target group; (3) the poll results were unreliable, since ASCS did not verify whether the respondents correctly placed themselves inside or outside the target group; and (4) ASCS did not apply the act's legal definition of the target group to the years 1981 through 1985, since it believed the definition applied only to programs after 1986.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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